This paper provides evidence on the behavior of reservation wages over the spell of unemployment using high‐frequency longitudinal data. Using data from our survey of unemployed workers in New Jersey, where workers were interviewed each week for up to 24 weeks, we find that self‐reported...

This paper analyses job seekers' perceptions and their relationship to unemployment outcomes to study heterogeneity and duration dependence in both perceived and actual job finding. Using longitudinal data from two comprehensive surveys, we document that elicited beliefs are (1) strongly...

This paper explores the relationship between the duration of a vacancy and the starting wage of a new job, using linked data on vacancies, the posting establishments and the workers eventually filling the vacancies. The unique combination of large-scale, administrative worker-, establishment-...

Disability insurance (DI) applications and awards are countercyclical. One potential explanation is that unemployed individuals who exhaust their Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits use DI as a form of extended benefits. We exploit the haphazard pattern of UI benefit extensions in the Great...

We use a mix of new and existing data to develop the Aggregate Hours Gap (AHG), a novel measure of labor market underutilization. Our measure differentiates individuals by detailed categories of labor market participation and uses data on their desired work hours as a measure of their potential...

We use a rich new body of data on the experiences of unemployed jobseekers to determine the sources of wage dispersion and to create a search model consistent with the acceptance decisions the jobseekers made. Heterogeneity in non-wage job values or amenities among jobseekers and jobs is a...

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...

In this paper we study the role of covenants in franchise contracts that restrict the recruitment and hiring of employees from other units within the same franchise chain in suppressing competition for workers. Based on an analysis of 2016 Franchise Disclosure Documents, we find that...

In the last decade, state courts in many areas of the United States have ruled in favor of employees alleqing they were improperly dismissed. Many economists have contended that any judical or legislative departure from the employment-at-will doctrine is regressive and inefficient because it...

There are many estimates of the effect of college quality on students' subsequent earnings. One difficulty interpreting past estimates, however, is that elite colleges admit students, in part, based on characteristics that are related to their earnings capacity. Since some of these...