In search theory, an important distinction can be drawn between models with competitive search and with random search; empirical work on job search models overwhelmingly assume random search. This paper uses linked register data on workers and rms to explore patterns of wages at job to job...

Do firms have the right incentives to innovate in the presence of spillovers? This paper proposes an explicit channel of spillovers through labor flows within a framework of competitive search. Firms can choose to innovate or to imitate by hiring a worker from a firm that has already innovated....

Housing transactions by existing homeowners take two steps, a purchase of a new property and sale of the old housing unit. These two decisions are not independent, and their sequence may depend on the state of the housing market. This paper shows how the sequence of buyer-seller decisions...

We consider a model economy populated by risk-neutral firms with multiple vacancies and risk-averse workers. Following the implicit contract literature, we assume that workers have limited access to the intertemporal trade markets. Following the directed search literature, we assume that...

We consider a frictional labor market in which firms want to insure their senior employees against income fluctuations and, at the same time, want to recruit new employees to fill their vacant positions. Firms can commit to a wage schedule, i.e. a schedule that specifies the wage paid by the...

All OECD countries have either legally mandated severance pay or compensations imposed by industry-level bargaining in case of employer initiated job separations. According to the extensive literature on Employment Protection Legislation such transfers are either ineffective or highly...

In an important paper, Aghion and Bolton (1987) argue that a buyer and a seller may agree on high liquidation damages in order to extract rents from future suppliers. As this may distort future trade, it may be socially wasteful. We argue that Aghion and Bolton's' analysis is incomplete in some...

We examine the origins and outcome of entrepreneurship on the basis of exceptionally comprehensive Norwegian matched worker-firm-owner data. In contrast to most existing studies, our notion of entrepreneurship not only comprises self-employment, but also employment in partly self-owned limited...

Partner selection is a vital feature of human behavior with important consequences for individuals, families, and society. Hypergamy occurs when a husband’s earning capacity systematically exceeds that of his wife. We provide a theoretical framework that rationalizes hypergamy even in the...