We develop an equilibrium search-matching model with risk-neutral agents and two-sided ex-ante heterogeneity Unemployment insurance has the standard effect of reducing employment, but also helps workers to get a suitable job. The predictions of our simple model are consistent with the...

Over the last 10 years, a variety of analysts have blamed high unemployment and stagnant economic growth in Europe on inflexible labor markets and pointed to the US as a more flexible economy, due to its less regulated labor markets and less generous social protection programs. This paper...

Many interesting elements of supply and demand are starkly observable in professional athletics. Understanding institutional arrangements, competitive balance and labor-management relations requires a basic understanding of sports labor markets and the struggle for control of those markets...

Economists are often puzzled by the stronger public opposition to immigration than trade, since the two policies have similar effects on wages. Unlike trade, however, immigration can alter the composition of the local population, imposing potential externalities on natives. While previous...

European unemployment has been steadily increasing for the last 15 years and isexpected to remain very high for many years to come. In this paper, we argue thatthis fact implies that shocks have much more persistent effects on unemployment thanstandard theories can possibly explain. We develop a...

The continuing inflow of hundreds of thousands of refugees into many European countries has ignited much political controversy and raised questions that require a fuller understanding of the determinants and consequences of refugee supply shocks. This paper revisits four historical refugee...

A flexible labor margin allows households to absorb shocks to asset values with changes in hours worked as well as changes in consumption. This ability to partially offset wealth shocks by varying hours of work can significantly alter the household's attitudes toward risk, as shown in Swanson...

This paper estimates the response of the unemployment rate and labor force participation rate to exogenous variation in the youth share of the working age population, using cross-state variation in lagged birth rates as an instrumental variable. A one percent increase in the youth share reduces...

This paper reinvestigates the evidence on the impact of the minimum wage on employment in Puerto Rico. The strongest evidence that the minimum wage had a negative effect on employment comes from an aggregate time series analysis. The weakest evidence comes from cross-industry analyses. The main...

The misuse of alcoholic beverages ('problem drinking') has been demonstrated to result in enormous economic costs; most of these costs have been shown to be reduced productivity in the labor market. The purpose of this paper is to present sound structural estimates of the relationship between...