In this paper we develop a structural model for job search behavior of students entering the labor market. The model includes endogenous search effort and on-the-job search. Since students usually do not start a regular job before graduation but start job search earlier, our model is non...

Firms hiring fresh graduates face uncertainty on the future productivity of workers. Theory suggests that starting wages reflect this, with lower pay for greater uncertainty. We use the dispersion of exam grades within a field of education as an indicator of the unobserved heterogeneity that...

Labor market theories allowing for search frictions make marked predictions on the effect of the degree of frictions on wages. Often, the effect is predicted to be negative. Despite the popularity of these theories, this has never been tested. We perform tests with matched worker-firm data. The...

Equilibrium search models are useful tools for the evaluation of labor market policies. Recently developed equilibrium search models of the labor market are able to fit the wage distribution perfectly with longitudinal labor supply data, by estimating an appropriate distribution of labor...

This paper estimates the impact of the murder of film maker Theo van

See 'On-The-Job Search, Mismatch and Efficiency', forthcoming in the 'Review of Economic Studies'.

This study documents two empirical regularities, using data for Denmark and Portugal. First, workers who are hired last, are the first to leave the firm (Last In, First Out; LIFO). Second, workers’ wages rise with seniority (= a worker’s tenure relative to the tenure of her colleagues). We...

In this paper, we use quantile regression decomposition methods to analyze the gender gap between men and women who work full time in the Nether- lands. Because the fraction of women working full time in the Netherlands is quite low, sample selection is a serious issue. In addition to shedding...

We analyze the impact of unemployment benefits and minimum wages using an equilibrium search model which allows for dispersion of benefits and productivity levels, job-to-job transitions, and structural and frictional unemployment. The estimation method uses readily available aggregate data on...

This paper investigates the effects of intensified screening of disability insurance benefit applications. A large-scale experiment was setup where in 2 of the 26 Dutch regions case workers of the disability insurance administration were instructed to screen applications more intense. The...