Using a matched firm-worker dataset, we show both theoretically and empirically that positiveassortative matching between firms...

To assess the employment effects of labor costs it is crucial to have reliable estimates of thelabor cost elasticity of labor demand. Using a matched firm-worker dataset, we estimate along run unconditional labor demand function, exploiting information on workers to correct forendogeneity in the...

It is argued that migration from Mexico to the US and its corresponding return migration aredetermined by international wage differentials and preferences for origin. We use a model ofjob search, savings and migration to show that job turnover is a crucial determinant of themigration process...

This paper measures the contribution of knowing Catalan to finding a job in Catalonia. In the early eighties a drastic language policy change (normalització) promoted the learning and use of Catalan and managed to reverse the falling trend of its relative use versus Castilian (Spanish), thereby...

This paper inquires on the effect of initial wealth in racial differences in early employment careers. I set up a dynamic model in which people simultaneously search for a job and accumulate wealth, and fit it to data from the National Longitudinal Survey (1979-cohort). With the recovered...

Catalonia's economy is characterized by linguistic diversity and provides a unique opportunity to measure the incidence of language proficiency on over-education, particularly, whether individuals with deficient language skills tend to acquire more formal skills or, on the contrary, become...

This paper analyzes the problem of matching heterogeneous agents in a Bayesian learning model. One agent gives a noisy signal to another agent, who is responsible for learning. If production has a strong informational component, a phase of cross-matching occurs, so that agents of low knowledge...

This paper proposes a common and tractable framework for analyzing different definitions of fixed and random effects in a contant-slope variable-intercept model. It is shown that, regardless of whether effects (i) are treated as parameters or as an error term, (ii) are estimated in different...

In this paper we analyze a mechanism that is particularly relevant to the workings of the Great Recession: we explain how easier home financing and higher homeownership rates increase unemployment rates. To this purpose we build a model of job search with liquid wealth accumulation and...

I discuss the application of capture-recapture methods to estimating the total number of deaths in armed conflicts, and propose an alternative method based on a trivariate discrete choice model. Data come from the 'Truth and Reconciliation Commission' (TRC) of Peru, around 25000 deaths,...