The paper proposes a model of on- and off-the-job search that combines convex hiring costs and directed search. Firms permanently differ in productivity levels, their production function features constant or decreasing returns to scale, and search costs are convex in search intensity. Wages are...

In search theory, an important distinction can be drawn between models with directed search and with random /undirected search. In the present paper we first present a simple model of competitive on-the-job search, where firms' productivity differences emerge endogenously through the firms'...

The Great Recession has indicated that firms' leverage and access to finance are important for hiring and firing decisions. It is now empirically established that bank lending is correlated to employment losses when credit conditions deteriorate. We provide further evidence of this drawing on a...

I study the effect of worker heterogeneities on wages and unemployment in a directed search model. A worker's productivity in a given firm depends both on his type and on a worker-firm specific component. Firms advertise unconditional wage offers only. The resulting equilibrium is inefficient,...

We study public ownership from the perspective of political economics. A partly partisan government runs a state-owned firm. The number of employees the government wants to hire depends both on economic conditions and on the preferences of the government, both unknown to the electorate. The...

Local network externalities are present when the network externalities associated with entering a certain network depends not only on the total number of agents in the network, but on the identity of the agents in the network. We explore the consequences of local network externalities within a...

The recent financial crises, alongside a dramatic rise in unemployment on both sides of the Atlantic, suggest that financial shocks do translate into the labor markets. In this paper we first document that financial recessions amplify labor market volatility and Okun's elasticity over the...

We examine the origins and outcome of entrepreneurship on the basis of exceptionally comprehensive Norwegian matched worker-firm-owner data. In contrast to most existing studies, our notion of entrepreneurship not only comprises self-employment, but also employment in partly self-owned limited...