How Tax Progression Affects Effort and Employment Within an efficiency wage framework, we study the effects of two revenue-neutral tax reforms that change the progressivity of the labour tax system. A revenue-neutral increase in both the wage tax and tax exemption and a revenue-neutral change in the composition of labour taxation towards the tax with the smaller tax base will lead to the same r...

We develop a model of nonstationary relational contracts in order to study internal wage dynamics. Workers are heterogeneous and each worker’s ability is both private information and fixed for all time. Learning therefore occurs within employment relationships. The inferences, however, are confounded by moral hazard: the distribution of output is determined by both the worker’s type and by his ...

We study the impact of reputational incentives in markets characterized by moral hazard problems. Social preferences have been shown to enhance contract enforcement in these markets, while at the same time generating considerable wage and price rigidity. Reputation powerfully amplifies the positive effects of social preferences on contract enforcement by increasing contract efficiency substanti...

The Relevance of Post-Match LTC: Why Has the Spanish Labor Market Become as Volatile as the US One? We present a Search and Matching model with heterogeneous workers (entrants and incumbents) that replicates the stylized facts characterizing the US and the Spanish labor markets. Under this benchmark, we find the Post-Match Labor Turnover Costs (PMLTC) to be the centerpiece to explain why the Sp...

Should principals explain and justify their evaluations? In this paper the principal’s evaluation is private information, but she can provide some justifications by sending a costly message. Indeed, it is optimal for the principal to explain her evaluation to the agent if and only if the evaluation turns out to be bad. The justification guarantees the agent that the principal has not distorted ...

The (Unexpected) Structure of “Rents” on the French and British Labour Markets This paper considers the allocation of labour on the French and British markets, using objective wage and subjective satisfaction data. We show that, in some sectors, workers enjoy both higher wages and higher job satisfaction. We argue that this reflects labour market wage rents. Perhaps surprisingly, wage rents are...

We construct an equilibrium random matching model of the labour market, with endogenous market participation and a general matching technology that allows for market size effects: the job-finding rate for workers and the incentives for participation change with the level of unemployment. In comparison to standard models with constant returns to scale in matching, agent behaviour is more complex...

Shimer (2005) argues that, in a reasonably calibrated Mortensen and Pissarides matching model, shocks to average labor productivity can account for only a small portion of the ‡uctuations in unemployment and vacancies. In this paper, I argue that, if vintage speci…c shocks rather than aggregate productivity shocks are the driving force of ‡uctuations, the model does a better job to account for ...

Becoming an Entrepreneur Using the 1996-2001 Chilean CASEN Panel Survey, this paper analyzes the impact on income of the switch from salaried employment to entrepreneurship (self-employment and leadership of micro-enterprises). By means of a difference-in-differences non-parametric matching estimator the paper alleviates problems of selection bias (on observable and unobservable traits) and cre...

Politico-Economic Causes of Labor Regulation in the United States: Rent Seeking, Alliances, Raising Rivals’ Costs (Even Lowering One’s Own?), and Interjurisdictional Competition This paper offers an eclectic survey of the political economy of labor regulation in the United States at federal and state levels along the dimensions of occupational health and safety, unjust dismissal, right-to-work,...