Search Results
Working Paper
The Dual Beveridge Curve
The recent behavior of the Beveridge Curve significantly differs from past recessions and is hard to explain with traditional gradual changes in fundamentals. We propose a novel dual vacancy model where we acknowledge that not all vacancies are made equal—when firms post a vacancy they can hire from unemployment or they can poach a worker from another firm. Our dual vacancy model segments the labor market into separate search processes for unemployed and employed workers and provides a better fit to the data than traditional models assuming a homogeneous market. By analyzing labor market ...
Working Paper
Labor matching: putting the pieces together
The original Mortensen-Pissarides model possesses two elements that are absent from the commonly used simplified version: the job destruction margin and training costs. I find that these two elements enable a model driven by a single aggregate shock to simultaneously explain most movements involving unemployment, vacancies, job destruction, job creation, the job finding rate and wages. The job destruction margin's role in propagating aggregate shocks is to create an additional pool of unemployed at the onset of a recession. The role of training costs is to explain the simultaneous decline in ...
Economics of Love: Rejection Worth Chance at Dream Date
With the advance of social networks and increasing prevalence of online dating, the question of how men and women match up has gained importance in economics and society.
Working Paper
Marriage Market Sorting in the U.S.
We examine shifts in the U.S. marriage market, assessing how online dating, demographic changes and evolving societal norms influence mate choice and broader sorting trends. Using a targeted search model, we analyze mate selection based on factors such as education, age, race, income and skill. Intriguingly, despite the rise of online dating, preferences, mate choice and overall sorting patterns showed negligible change from 2008 to 2021. However, a longer historical view from 1960 to 2020 reveals a trend toward preferences for similarity, particularly concerning income, education and skills. ...
Working Paper
Wage Setting Under Targeted Search
When setting initial compensation, some firms set a fixed, non-negotiable wage while others bargain. In this paper we propose a parsimonious search and matching model with two-sided heterogeneity, where the choice of wage-setting protocol, wages, search intensity and degree of randomness in matching are endogenous. We find that posting and bargaining coexist as wage-setting protocols if there is sufficient heterogeneity in match quality, search costs or market tightness and that labor market tightness and relative costs of search play a key role in the optimal choice of the wage-setting ...
Journal Article
Long view of China suggests inevitable slowdown
Market reforms account for almost half of China?s growth miracle since 1978. However, the pace of expansion is bound to slow down as China approaches the technological frontier.
Working Paper
The Dual Beveridge Curve
When firms decide to post a vacancy they can hire from the pool of unemployed workers or they can poach a worker from another firm. In this paper we show that if there are two different matching processes, one for unemployed workers and another one for job-to-job transitions, then implications for the Beveridge curve are potentially very different, influencing the effects of monetary policy on unemployment. We show that over the years the hiring process and how job postings are used as an input into this process has changed dramatically.
Working Paper
A theory of targeted search
We present a theory of targeted search, where people with a finite information processing capacity search for a match. Our theory explicitly accounts for both the quantity and the quality of matches. It delivers a unique equilibrium that resides in between the random matching and the directed search outcomes. The equilibrium that emerges from this middle ground is inefficient relative to the constrained Pareto allocation. Our theory encompasses the outcomes of the random matching and the directed search literature as limiting cases.
Working Paper
Wage Setting Under Targeted Search
When setting initial compensation some firms set a fixed non-negotiable wage while others bargain. In this paper we propose a parsimonious search and matching model with two sided heterogeneity, where search intensity and the degree of randomness in matching are endogenous, and firms decide whether to bargain or post wages. We study the implications of heterogeneous search costs and market tightness on the choice of the wage setting mechanism, as well as the relationship between bargaining prevalence and wage level, residual wage dispersion, and labor market tightness. We find that bargaining ...
Working Paper
Targeted Search in Matching Markets
We propose a parsimonious matching model where a person's choice of whom to meet endogenizes the degree of randomness in matching. The analysis highlights the interaction between a productive motive, driven by the surplus attainable in a match, and a strategic motive, driven by reciprocity of interest of potential matches. We find that the interaction between these two motives differs with preferences?vertical versus horizontal?and that this interaction implies that preferences recovered using our model can look markedly different from those recovered using a model where the degree of ...