We adapt the models of Menzio and Moen (2010) and Snell and Thomas (2010) to consider a labour market in which firms can commit to wage contracts but cannot commit not to replace incumbent workers. Workers are risk averse, so that there exists an incentive for firms to smooth wages. Real wages...

This paper considers a two-period optimal contracting model in which firms make new hires in the second period subject to the constraint that they cannot pay discriminate either against or in favour of the new hires. Under an assumption on the information available to workers, it is shown that...

The fluctuations in incomes inherent in rural communities can be attenuated by reciprocal insurance. We develop a model of such insurance based on self-interested behaviour and voluntary participation. One individual assists another only if the costs of so doing are outweighed by the benefits...

We study the relationship between employment growth and worker flows in excess of job flows (churn) at the establishment level using the new German AWFP dataset spanning from 1975-2014. Churn is above 5 percent of employment along the entire employment growth distribution and most pronounced at...

Using the German IAB Job Vacancy Survey, we look into the black box of recruiting intensity and hiring practices from the employers' perspective. Our paper evaluates three important channels for hiring - namely vacancy posting, the selectivity of hiring (labor selection), and the number of...

We document substantial cross-sectional heterogeneity of German establishments' real wage cyclicality over the business cycle. While wages of the median establishment are moderately procyclical, 36 percent of establishments have countercyclical wages. We estimate a negative connection between...

When employers face a trade-off between growing large and paying low wages - that is, when they have monopsony power - some productive employers will decide to acquire fewer customers, forgo sales, and remain small. These decisions have adverse consequences for aggregate labor productivity....