What role does labor play in firms' market value? We use a production-based asset pricing model with factor adjustment costs and forward-looking agents to explore this question. We posit that the hiring of labor is akin to investment in capital and that the two interact, with the interaction...

The paper takes the search and matching model of the aggregate labor market to the data. It tests the model's empirical validity and employs structural estimation to generate a characterization of the optimal behavior of firms and workers. The model is applied to Israeli data that are uniquely...

This paper provides a novel justification for a declining time profile of unemployment benefits that does not rely on moral hazard or consumption-smoothing considerations. We consider a simple search environment with homogeneous workers and low- and high-productivity firms. By introducing a...