Download or read book Essays on Labor Market Dynamics with Worker Heterogeneity written by Carlo Pizzinelli and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Essays in Labor Market Dynamics and Policy Implications During COVID 19 and Beyond written by Lien Ta and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thesis comprises three chapters that delve into various labor market dynamics and the policy implications in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath. In the first chapter (joint with Andre Kurmann and Etienne Lale), we investigate the dynamics of small businesses and employment using real-time data from the private sector throughout the COVID-19 crisis. The pandemic has led to an explosion of research using private-sector data to measure small business activity. Yet important questions remain about sample representativeness and how to identify business openings and closings. We propose new methods to address these issues by exploiting information on business activity from Google, Facebook, and Safegraph. We apply our methods to Homebase data and show that the resulting estimates closely fit official statistics. We then use the data to study whether small businesses have been hit harder by the pandemic and the extent to which the Paycheck Protection Program helped mitigate these effects. The second chapter (joint with Andreas Hornstein, Marios Karabarbounis, Andre Kurmann, Etienne Lale) focus on the effects of pandemic unemployment insurance (UI) benefits. UI acts as both a disincentive for labor supply and as a stimulus for labor demand. In equilibrium, the two effects combine, which may explain why several studies have found only small negative effects of the generous UI expansions during the pandemic on job finding rates and employment. In this paper we propose a new research design to estimate independently the disincentive effects of pandemic unemployment benefits. Using high-frequency worker-firm matched data from Homebase, we document that employment of low-wage businesses recovered more slowly from the initial pandemic shock than neighboring high-wage businesses, and that this recovery gap is significantly related to the relative generosity of UI benefits. By comparing neighboring businesses that are largely sharing the benefits of the local UI stimulus, our research design identifies more closely the disincentive effects of pandemic UI benefits. We use an equilibrium model of labor search with heterogeneity in firms and workers to translate the reduced-form estimate of the recovery gap into an unemployment duration elasticity and an aggregate employment loss. Our model, which captures well the recovery gap between low- and high-wage businesses, implies relatively low duration elasticities. Yet, the sheer size and multitude of the pandemic programs implies that the disincentive effects arising from the pandemic UI benefits are substantial and amount to 5 percent of normal employment. The third chapter studies work-from-home (WFH) work mode's implications on labor market. The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a widespread adoption of WFH practices and accelerated the advancement of remote work technologies. Surprisingly, even after the pandemic has subsided, a substantial shift towards WFH remains evident among workers. However, the accessibility to WFH is not uniform across all types of workers. Notably, high-tech industries, characterized by a predominantly high-skilled workforce, exhibit a higher prevalence of WFH. This raises concerns about the effects of WFH on workers employed in industries where remote work is unfeasible. In this paper, I develop a spatial equilibrium model that incorporates WFH to examine the implications on workers' mobility, local market outcomes, and overall welfare. I find 3 key insights: (1) there is a productivity threshold for WFH adoption, (2) there is a one-way dependence of low-skilled workers on high-skilled workers' mobility, and (3) if workers are fully mobile, both types of workers benefit from the introduction of WFH.

Download or read book Essays on Labor Market with Heterogeneous Workers written by Eunsun Gil and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in my dissertation examine how economic downturn and job composition affect heterogeneous workers in the labor market. In Chapter 1, I assert that slow recovery in aggregate employment compared to aggregate output in the United States consist of jobless growth in manufacturing and information industries. I observe the industrial transition of unemployed workers to demonstrate labor reallocation triggered by a decline of middle-wage jobs. I simulate the jobless growth and vertical reallocation in general equilibrium model with sorting and optimal submarket choices. In Chapter 2, I quantify recession effect on annual labor income for heterogeneous workers. I find that low-wage workers earn less annually mostly because of lower working hours through unemployment, whereas high-wage workers lose their annual earnings primarily due to lower hourly rates of job-to-job transition. I explain decreasing layoff risk (extensive margin) and increasing wage-cut risk (intensive margin) to previous wage rate in an on-the-job search model with real business cycles. In Chapter 3, I reassess transitional dynamics of unemployment and vacancy rate in a homogeneous agents search model, by allowing sunk entry costs and discrete productivity process. The entry costs allow a positive outside option for a vacant firm so that an outside firm and vacant firm make different labor market participation and hiring choices. When economy transit between two steady-state equilibria, the vacancy rate is no more a jump variable, and an outward (inward) shift is expected before reaching a low (high) productivity equilibrium.

Download or read book Essays on Labor Market with Heterogeneous Workers written by Eunsun Gil and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in my dissertation examine how economic downturn and job composition affect heterogeneous workers in the labor market. In Chapter 1, I assert that slow recovery in aggregate employment compared to aggregate output in the United States consist of jobless growth in manufacturing and information industries. I observe the industrial transition of unemployed workers to demonstrate labor reallocation triggered by a decline of middle-wage jobs. I simulate the jobless growth and vertical reallocation in general equilibrium model with sorting and optimal submarket choices. In Chapter 2, I quantify recession effect on annual labor income for heterogeneous workers. I find that low-wage workers earn less annually mostly because of lower working hours through unemployment, whereas high-wage workers lose their annual earnings primarily due to lower hourly rates of job-to-job transition. I explain decreasing layoff risk (extensive margin) and increasing wage-cut risk (intensive margin) to previous wage rate in an on-the-job search model with real business cycles. In Chapter 3, I reassess transitional dynamics of unemployment and vacancy rate in a homogeneous agents search model, by allowing sunk entry costs and discrete productivity process. The entry costs allow a positive outside option for a vacant firm so that an outside firm and vacant firm make different labor market participation and hiring choices. When economy transit between two steady-state equilibria, the vacancy rate is no more a jump variable, and an outward (inward) shift is expected before reaching a low (high) productivity equilibrium.

Download or read book Essays on Labor Market Frictions and Worker Productivity written by David Wonyoung Jang and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: My dissertation examines how labor market adjustment happens in times of economic downturns or policy changes. Chapter 1 analyzes how the contribution of intensive margin adjustments to the cyclical fluctuations in total hours worked has increased in the US since the 1980s. I document that the job tenure length has increased during this period and labor hours adjustments in recessions are more prominent in economies with higher job tenure lengths. I build a search-and-matching model with part-time workers and job-specific human capital accumulation. With the model, I claim that the improvement in initial match quality can account for the increased use of intensive margin adjustments along the business cycle. A policy simulation shows that subsidizing intensive margin adjustments via Short-time compensation (STC) policy is more effective in reducing unemployment volatility when the initial match productivities are higher and job separations are lower. Chapter 1 explored the impact of job-specific human capital on intensive margin adjustments, while Chapter 2 examines the role of ex-ante worker heterogeneity. Chapter 2 finds that the pool of IPT workers increasingly consists of high-wage workers who are more attached to the labor market during recessions. According to the microdata from the Current Population Survey, this cyclical change is driven by the inflows into the IPT pool, especially the full-time to IPT flow. The demographic compositional changes of the IPT pool in recessions suggest a new channel through which the intensive margin adjustments can affect aggregate unemployment fluctuations by driving up firms' hiring standards during economic downturns. Chapter 3 focuses on a natural experiment in Oregon and Florida that changed the enforceability of non-compete agreements (NCA) between firms and workers. Using the experiment, I find that banning NCA can have a negative consequence on low-wage workers and an unintentional distributional impact. The unemployment duration increases after the ban which exacerbates the loss of general human capital of unemployed workers. I propose the crowding out effect of unemployed workers due to the ban can cause what I observe in the data and the potential cost of banning NCA for workers. Together, these chapters provide insights into different aspects of labor market dynamics, highlighting the importance of initial match quality, worker heterogeneity, and policy implications for labor market institutions

Download or read book Essays on Labor Market Dynamics written by Christina Hyde Patterson and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thesis consists of three chapters on labor market dynamics. In the first chapter, I show empirically that the unequal incidence of recessions is a core channel through which aggregate shocks are amplified. I show that the aggregate marginal propensity to consume (MPC) is larger when income shocks disproportionately hit high-MPC individuals, and I define the Matching Multiplier as the increase in the output multiplier originating from the matching of workers to jobs with different income elasticities - a greater matching multiplier translates into more powerful amplification in a range of business cycle models. Using administrative data from the United States, I document that the earnings of individuals with a higher marginal propensity to consume are more exposed to recessions. I show that this covariance between worker MPCs and the elasticity of their earnings to GDP is large enough to increase shock amplification by 40 percent over a benchmark in which all workers are equally exposed. Using local labor market variation, I validate this amplification mechanism by showing that areas with higher matching multipliers experience larger employment fluctuations over the business cycle. Lastly, I derive a generalization of the matching multiplier in an incomplete markets model and show numerically that this mechanism is quantitatively similar within this structural framework. In the second chapter, joint with David Autor, David Dorn, Lawrence Katz, and John Van Reenen, we explore the well-documented fall of labor's share of GDP in the United States and many other countries. Existing empirical assessments typically rely on industry or macro data, obscuring heterogeneity among firms. In this paper, we analyze micro panel data from the U.S. Economic Census since 1982 and document empirical patterns to assess a new interpretation of the fall in the labor share based on the rise of "superstar firms." If globalization or technological changes advantage the most productive firms in each industry, product market concentration will rise as industries become increasingly dominated by superstar firms. Since these firms have high markups and a low labor share of firm value-added and sales, this depresses the aggregate labor share. We empirically assess seven predictions of this hypothesis: (i) industry sales will increasingly concentrate in a small number of firms; (ii) industries where concentration rises most will have the largest declines in the labor share; (iii) the fall in the labor share will be driven largely by reallocation rather than a fall in the unweighted mean labor share across all firms; (iv) the between-firm reallocation component of the fall in the labor share will be greatest in the sectors with the largest increases in market concentration; (v) the industries that are becoming more concentrated will exhibit faster growth of productivity and innovation; (vi) the aggregate markup will rise more than the unweighted firm markup; and (vii) these patterns should be observed not only in U.S. firms, but also internationally. We find support for all of these predictions. In the third chapter, I explore how the distribution of tasks across industries affects labor market responses to shocks. I present a model in which task-level wages connect industries employing the same tasks, meaning that the distribution of tasks across industries insures some workers against shocks and alters their labor market experiences. Workers trained in more dispersed tasks (e.g. accountants) face less unemployment risk from industry-specific shocks than workers who do tasks that are concentrated in few industries (e.g. petroleum engineers). Using industry and regional data, I show empirical evidence that supports the model's predictions - industries that employ more specialized labor contract less in response to demand shocks than industries with less specialized labor. JEL Classifications: E21, J23, D33

Download or read book Essays on Heterogeneity in Labor Markets written by and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 119 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In my thesis, I study the effects of agents' heterogeneity on labor market outcomes, with particular focus on sorting, performance, wages, and inequality. Chapter one studies multidimensional matching between workers and jobs. Workers differ in manual and cognitive skills and sort into jobs that demand different combinations of these two skills. To study this multidimensional sorting, I develop a theoretical framework that generalizes the unidimensional notion of assortative matching. I derive the equilibrium in closed form and use this explicit solution to study biased technological change. The key finding is that an increase in worker-job complementarities in cognitive relative to manual inputs leads to more pronounced sorting and wage inequality across cognitive relative to manual skills. This can trigger wage polarization and boost aggregate wage dispersion. I then estimate the model for the US during the 1990s. I identify a significant increase in complementarities of cognitive inputs and in cognitive skill-bias in production. Counterfactual exercises suggest that these technology shifts can account for observed changes in worker-job sorting, wage polarization and a significant part of the increase in US wage dispersion. Chapter two develops a theory that links differences in men's and women's social networks to disparities in their labor market performance. We are motivated by our empirical finding that men's and women's networks differ. Men have a higher degree (more network links) than women, but women have a higher clustering coefficient (a woman's friends are also friends among each other). In our model, a worker with a higher degree has better access to information. In turn, a worker with a higher clustering coefficient faces more peer pressure. Both peer pressure and access to information can attenuate a team moral hazard problem in the work place. But whether peer pressure or access to information is more important depends on the work environment. We find that, in environments where uncertainty is high, information is crucial and, therefore, men outperform women / in line with findings from sectors with high earnings' uncertainty like the financial or film industry.

Download or read book Essays on Heterogeneity in Labor Markets written by Gonul Sengul and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: My dissertation focuses on the heterogeneity in labor markets. The first chapter proposes an explanation for the unemployment rate difference between skill groups. Low skill workers (workers without a four year college degree) have a higher unemployment rate. The reason for that " ... is mainly because they (low skill workers) are more likely to become unemployed, not because they remain unemployed longer, once unemployed" (Layard, Nickell, Jackman, 1991, p. 44). This chapter proposes an explanation for the difference in job separation probabilities between these skill groups: high skill workers have lower job separation probabilities as they are selected more effectively during the hiring process. I use a labor search model with match specific quality to quantify the explanatory power of this hypothesis on differences in job separation probabilities and unemployment rates across skill groups. The second chapter analyzes the effects of one channel of interaction (job competition) between skill groups on their labor market outcomes. Do skilled workers prefer unskilled jobs to being unemployed? If so, skilled workers compete with unskilled workers for those jobs. Job competition generates interaction between the labor market outcomes of these groups. I use a heterogeneous agents model with skilled and unskilled workers in which the only interaction across groups is the job competition. Direct effects of job competition are reducing skilled unemployment rate (since they have a bigger market) and increasing the unskilled unemployment rate (since they face greater competition). However number of vacancies respond to job competition in equilibrium. For instance, unskilled firms have incentives to open more vacancies since filling a vacancy is easier if there is job competition. Thus how unskilled unemployment and wages are affected by job competition depends on which effect dominates. The results for reasonable parameter values show that job competition does reduce the average unemployment rate. It reduces the skilled unemployment rate more, generating an increase in unemployment rate inequality. However, the employment rate at skilled jobs is unaffected. The third chapter focuses on skill biased technological change. Skill biased technological change is one of the explanations for the asymmetry between labor market outcomes of skill groups over the last few decades. However, during this time period there were also skill neutral shocks that could contribute to these outcomes. The third chapter analyzes the effects of skill biased and neutral shocks on overall labor market variables. I use a model in which skilled and unskilled outputs are intermediate goods, and final good sector receives all the shocks. A numerical exercise shows that both skilled and unskilled unemployment rates respond to shocks in the same direction. The response of unemployment rate to skill neutral shocks is bigger than the response to skill biased shocks for both skill groups. However, the unskilled unemployment changes more than the skilled unemployment rate as a response to skill neutral shocks. Thus, skill neutral shocks reduce the unemployment rate gap between skill groups.

Download or read book Essays on Agent Heterogeneity in Macroeconomics written by Jose Luis Luna Alpizar and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Heterogeneous agents models have become the norm in modern macroeconomics as the limitations of the representative-agent paradigm and the importance of studying household heterogeneity grow in recognition. Agent heterogeneity may not only be important to accurately capture the description of an aggregate equilibrium. Also, the representative agent assumption may hide many distributional effects and therefore could change the answer to many normative questions usually given by representative agent models.This dissertation contains three chapters exemplifying ways in which the consideration of heterogeneous agents in the modelling of macroeconomic phenomena has important repercussions for the predictions of the model and its normative implications. Chapters 1 and 2 show the importance of accounting for worker heterogeneity in the analysis of labor markets. Chapter 1 presents a search and matching model of unemployment with heterogeneous workers which's main features, are ex-ante worker heterogeneity and undirected search. These features enable the model to replicate the empirical correlations between labor market outcomes and proxy variables for worker productivity. The model displays job rationing, which makes it useful to understand the high levels of unemployment observed in deep recessions. It also constitutes a versatile tool for the analysis of several labor-market aspects in which worker heterogeneity could play an important role, such as the impact of employment policies that are believed to have asymmetric effects across the labor force.Chapter 2 provides an example of such applications by analyzing the effects of increments of a minimum wage. It explores theoretically and empirically the notion that minimum wages affect low-skill workers asymmetrically due to productivity differences. Using the model presented in chapter 1, with the incorporation of endogenous search intensity to account for the effects that minimum wages could have on worker participation, I show that a rising minimum wage lowers the employment and labor force participation of low-productivity workers by pricing them out of the market, while it increases the employment, participation, and wages of more productive workers that remain hirable. Chapter 2 also contains an empirical analysis that investigates and ultimately validates the model's predictions of changes in the minimum wage. Within the labor market for low-education (high school or lower) workers, increments in the minimum wage have diametrically opposed effects: they reduce the employment and labor force participation of teenagers with less than high school education, while increasing the employment and labor force participation of mature workers with high school educational attainment. A calibrated version of the model targeting the low-education labor market shows that, despite its opposite effects across the labor force, an increase in the minimum wage negatively impacts aggregate employment, labor force participation, and social welfare.Chapter 3 investigates the existence of complex dynamics in the behavior of exchange rates due heterogeneity in the expectations of their future value. A simple model of exchange rate dynamics featuring traders with heterogeneous expectations is introduced. The model is based on the asset pricing model in Brock and Hommes (1998) and features the BNN dynamic presented in Brown et al. (1950), a dynamic with desirable properties absent in other dynamics used in the literature. The chapter shows that even this simple model can easily generate complex and even chaotic dynamics in the exchange rate because of the interaction of traders with different beliefs. An important implication is that long-term exchange rate prediction is, in theory, difficult.

Download or read book Labour Market Dynamics and Worker Heterogeneity During the Great Recession Evidence from Europe written by Ronald Bachmann and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Essays on Labor Markets written by Andreas Gulyas and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 103 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: My dissertation contributes towards our understanding of the determinants of wage inequality and to the causes of the emergence of jobless recoveries. It consists of two chapters. The first, "Identifying Labor Market Sorting with Firm Dynamics" studies the determinants of wage inequality, which requires understanding how workers and firms match. I propose a novel strategy to identify the complementarities in production between unobserved worker and firm attributes, based on the idea that positive (negative) sorting implies that firms upgrade (downgrade) their workforce quality when they grow in size. I use German matched employer-employee data to estimate a search and matching model with worker-firm complementarities, job-to-job transitions, and firm dynamics. The relationship between changes in workforce quality and firm growth rates in the data informs the strength of complementarities in the model. Thus, this strategy bypasses the lack of identification inherent to environments with constant firm types. I find evidence of negative sorting and a significant dampening effect of worker-firm complementarities on wage inequality. Worker and firm heterogeneity, differential bargaining positions, and sorting contribute 71\%, 20\%, 32\% and -23\% to wage dispersion, respectively. Reallocating workers across firms to the first-best allocation without mismatch yields an output gain of less than one percent.\\ My second chapter, "Does the Cyclicality of Employment Depend on Trends in the Participation Rate?" studies the fact that the past three recessions were characterized by sluggish recovery of the employment to population ratio. The reasons behind these "jobless recoveries" are not well understood. Contrary to other post-WWII recessions, these "jobless recoveries" occurred during times with downward trending labor force participation rate(LFPR). I extend the directed search setup of Menzio et al. (2012) with a labor force participation decision to study whether trends in LFPR cause jobless recessions. I then show that that recoveries during times of declining LFPR look very different to recoveries during positive LFPR trend. The basic intuition is as follows: During downward trending LFPR, many low productivity workers cling on to their jobs, but once separated, it does not pay off for them to pay the search cost to re-enter the market. If the recession happens during increasing trend LFPR, then the employment recovery is helped by persons entering the labor market. Thus, I highlight that contrary to the usual approach in the literature, it is important to explicitly account for the trend of the LFPR.

Download or read book Labor Markets in Action written by Richard Barry Freeman and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Essays on Labor Market Mechanisms written by Ana Luisa Toledo Piza Pessoa Araujo and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 95 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation studies the interaction between job stability and labor markets. Chapter 1 studies the impact of firm turnover and job recall on wages. I start this chapter with an empirical contribution. I demonstrate the importance of recall and turnover for employment dynamics and wages using matched employer-employee data from Brazil. First, I document large dispersion of job-destruction rates and recall rates across sectors. Second, I show that after controlling for worker and firm characteristics, sectors with greater job instability (an inverse measure of tenure that controls for recall) pay more. To explain this finding I construct a multi-sector closed economy version of Mortensen and Pissarides (1994) with directed search and heterogeneous recall rates as well as heterogeneous layoff rates across sectors. Once I have estimated the model's parameters using the data, I then conduct the main experiment which is to assess the impact of Brazil's recall restrictions on employment dynamics. The Brazilian government bans recalls within 3 months of the date of firing. I simulate the imposition of this law, and I find that this restriction on recall activity decreases the employment rate significantly in aggregate, but the impact is very heterogeneous across sectors. Chapter 2, studies wage inequality and job stability. I start this chapter with a data motivation where I use matched employer-employee data to establish that separations are disproportionately comprised of layoffs for low wage workers, not separations due to job-to-job transitions. Secondly, I show that existing models such as Burdett and Coles (2003) and Shi (2009) are inconsistent with this fact since they assume that the exogenous component of job destruction is constant across firms, and low wage workers search on-the-job much more intensely than high wage workers. To explain this fact, I develop a new model that takes into account the disproportionate share of layoffs among low wage workers. I show that after correctly matching the wage/layoff relationship, the introduction of a 30% `firing cost' results in nearly twice as much wage inequality as compared to a model with a homogeneous firing rate across firms.

Download or read book Essays in Macroeconomic Effects of Labor Market Heterogeneity and Impact of Public Policies on Labor Outcomes written by Ammar Farooq and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: My dissertation explores the macroeconomic implications of heterogeneity in labor markets and the role of public policy in improving labor market efficiency. First, I aim to shed light on the importance of individual and firm level decisions in determining aggregate labor market outcomes such as the level of mismatch in worker skills and job requirements. Second, I analyze the role of public policy in affecting these decisions and hence, the economy wide aggregates.

Download or read book Essays on Heterogeneity in Labor Market Search written by Lawrence Uren and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Essays on Firms Aggregate Uncertainty and the Labor Market written by Nicolò Dalvit and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thesis is comprised of three chapters that revolve around two main themes:the micro economic incidence of macro shocks and the role of firms in determining labor market outcomes. In the first chapter I provide new evidence on the cyclical dynamics of firms. I show that firms expecting to lose market share in the futureare hit the hardest during economic downturns. This heterogeneous sensitivity provides a new rationale for the observed counter-cyclical dispersion in firms'growth rates and has implications for the dynamics of aggregate employment. The second chapter studies the role of income tax progressivity in reallocating income risk across heterogeneous workers and stabilizing the economy. We show that eliminating income tax progressivity in Italy would come at the expense of the majority of the work force. The current system of marginal tax rates is effective atreallocating cyclical income risk from low to high wage workers and reducesaggregate employment volatility compared to a counter-factual flat rate system.The third chapter considers the internal hierarchical structure of a firm and its rolein determining wages and internal promotions. We focus in particular on the rolethat internal hierarchies play in propagating gender differences in representation and pay. We study the effect of a change in the gender composition at the top afirm's internal hierarchy on workers further down the organizational ladder and findsome evidence of an effect only on layers close to the top.

Download or read book Essays on Equilibrium Labor Market Sorting written by Tzuo Hann Law and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The importance of time invariant, but unobserved characteristics of workers and their employers in the determination of wages is well known. This suggests that models of (un)employment featuring permanent worker and firm types are crucial for our understanding of labor markets. While such models are numerous, it was thought that even very simple ones were fundamentally not identifiable with wage data alone. Hence, the empirical content of these models were largely a mystery. With that, our understanding of permanent unobserved heterogeneity has been restricted to statistical models with limited economic interpretation. In the first chapter of my dissertation (joint with Marcus Hagedorn and Iourii Manovskii), I overcome this fundamental problem. I assess the empirical content of equilibrium models of labor market sorting based on unobserved (to economists) characteristics. Specifically, I develop quantitative tools to identify and estimate a wide class of models of labor market sorting. I not only find that many models are likely completely identifiable but that reliable estimates of key model primitives can be obtained using routinely available matched employer-employee datasets. In the second chapter of my dissertation (with Kory Kantenga), I apply the framework developed in the first chapter to study the role of worker and employer heterogeneity in driving German wage inequality between 1993 and 2007. The model I earlier developed fits overall wage variance, the wage function, search frictions, unemployment levels and the degree of sorting between workers and firms. The fit of the model is comparable to non-structural approaches which utilize many more degrees of freedom. In decomposing the rise in German wage inequality, I find that changes in the non-parametrically estimated production function and the sorting between worker and firm types that it induces accounts for most of the increase in German wage inequality. Finally, by testing whether log wage differences between employees who are coworkers at two distinct firms are constant, I show that the commonly assumed log additive separability approximation of log wages is rejected. Finally, the estimated model is capable of reproducing the degree of non additive separability in the data.