We study worker and firm behavior in an environment where worker effort could depend on co-workers? wages. Theoretically, we show that an increase in workers? ?concerns? with coworkers? wages should lead profit-maximizing firms to compress wages under quite general conditions. However, firms...

The 'ratchet effect' refers to a situation where a principal uses private information that is revealed by an agent's early actions to the agent's later disadvantage, in a context where binding multi-period contracts are not enforceable. In a simple, context-rich environment, we experimentally...

We study worker and firm behavior in an environment where worker effort could depend on co-workers’ wages. Theoretically, we show that an increase in workers’ ‘concerns’ with coworkers’ wages should lead profit-maximizing firms to compress wages under quite general conditions. However,...

Using Census and Current Population Survey data spanning 1959 through 1999, we assess the relative contributions of two factors to the decline in the gender wage gap: changes across cohorts in the relative slopes of men’s and women’s age-earnings profiles, versus changes in relative earnings...

American business seems to be infatuated with its workers’ "leadership" skills. Is there such a thing, and is it rewarded in labor markets? Using the Project Talent, NLS72 and High School and Beyond datasets, we show that men who occupied leadership positions in high school earn more as...

Using data spanning a half century for adjacent jurisdictions in the U.S. and Canada, we study the long-term effects of a very generous unemployment insurance (UI) program on weeks worked. We find large effects. For example, in 1990, about 6 percent of employed men in Maine's northernmost...

How do international differences in labor market institutions affect the nature of immigrant earnings assimilation? Using 1980/81 and 1990/91 cross-sections of census data from Australia, Canada, and the United States, we estimate the separate effects of arrival cohort and duration of...

Beyond some contracted minimum, salaried workers? hours are largely chosen at the worker?s discretion and should respond to the strength of contract incentives. Accordingly, we consider the response of teacher hours to accountability and school choice laws introduced in U.S. public schools over...

After decades of stability, the technologies used by workers to locate new jobs began to change rapidly with the diffusion of internet access in the late 1990?s. Which types of persons incorporated the internet into their job search strategy, and did searching for work on line help these workers...

American business seems to be infatuated with its workers? ?leadership? skills. Is there such a thing, and is it rewarded in labor markets? Using the Project Talent, NLS72 and High School and Beyond datasets, we show that men who occupied leadership positions in high school earn more as adults,...