This dissertation consists of three essays in labor and development economics. The first essay, “Bumpy Rides: School to Work Transitions in South Africa,” quantifies the importance of the option to re-enroll in the school to work transition of South African youth. I estimate a structural...

This research addresses labor market transformation in Russia. It elaborates on the theory of job search and focuses on the following issues: (1) evaluation of the re-employment probabilities (hazard rates) for different socio-economic groups; and (2) estimation of wage offer distribution for...

This paper provides estimates of labour market inefficiency and the frictional unemployment rate for Australia and its States over the period January 1978 to December 1997. These estimates are derived from parametric statistical models of employment growth in which technical inefficiencies are...

A dynamic self-regulatory perspective is useful to explain within- and between-person variations in job search behaviors (e.g., Barber, Daly, Giannantonio, & Phillips, 1994; Kanfer, Wanberg, Kantrowitz, 2001). However, few studies have incorporated models and designs appropriate for addressing when...

My thesis explores the following question: how workers of different skill are allocated across jobs and unemployment over the business cycle. I am interestedin understanding the "over-qualification" of workers that occurs during periods of high unemployment, as increased congestion in the labor...

Este documento estudia el impacto de un experimento en Macedonia del Norte en el cual individuos en paro de larga duración que participan en un programa de empleo subvencionado son seleccionados de manera aleatoria para participar en una entrevista de trabajo. Los empleadores que contratan a un...

This paper investigates the dynamic relation between callers' socialties and their wireless phone service consumption. We construct a largepair-level panel dataset with information on the number of each pair'scommon contacts, calling activities, prices, and each caller'scharacteristics over a...

This dissertation examines how a fundamental group decision-making bias referred to as group polarization may influence boards’ major strategic decisions (i.e. acquisition premiums, executive compensation, and diversification) and the diffusion of practices through interlock networks. I begin...

The scope of my dissertation is to understand how consumers’ online communication affects consumers’ behavior and market outcomes. The recent growth of consumer generated media (CGM), also known as “new” media, has provided consumers easier interaction, both to search for product...