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 sheds new light on the role of regional labor market conditions for regional mobility. We study competition for vacant jobs along two dimensions - between employed and unemployed job searchers, and between resident and non-resident job searchers - within a simple matching framework....

Theory predicts that mandated employment protections may reduce productivity by distortingproduction choices. Firms facing (non-Coasean) worker dismissal costs will curtail hiringbelow efficient levels and retain unproductive workers, both of which should affectproductivity. These theoretical...

This paper addresses the large degree of frictional wage dispersion in US data.The standard job matching model without on-the-job search cannot replicate thispattern. With on-the-job search, however, unemployed job searchers are more willingto accept low wage offers since they can continue to...

Using a longitudinal matched employer-employee data set for Portugal over the 1986-2005period, this study analyzes the heterogeneity in wages responses to aggregate labor marketconditions for newly hired workers and existing workers. Accounting for both worker and firmheterogeneity, the data...

Many countries around the world have large public pension programs with signif-icant cross-cohort redistribution. This paper provides a rationale for such programsin a lifecycle framework with search and matching frictions in the labor market. Inthe model, public pension programs alter the age...

Many countries around the world have large public pension programs. Traditionally, these programshave been used to induce retirement by the elderly in order to free up jobs for the young andto redistribute income across generations. This paper provides an efficiency rationale for the...

In recent years, many countries have experienced a significant shift in demographic patterns towards the elderly. This phenomenon poses numerous challenges for the design of public pension programs and labor market policies. To better understand how public policy should be designed in response...

This paper discusses the paper "The Source of Historical Economic Fluctuations: An Analysis using Long-Run Restrictions" by Neville Francis and Valerie A. Ramey. It argues that these authors have made great progress both in the precise measurement of labor input as well as determining the effect...

We present a structural framework for the evaluation of public policies intended to increasejob search intensity. Most of the literature defines search intensity as a scalar that influencesthe arrival rate of job offers; here we treat it as the number of job applications that workerssend out....