A search theory of money and commerce with Neoclassical production

This paper advances a highly tractable model with search theoretic foundations for money and neoclassical growth. In the model, manufacturingand commerce are distinct and separate activities. In manufacturing,goods are efficiently produced combining capital and labor. In commerce,goods are exchanged in bilateral meetings. The model is applied to studythe effects of inßation on capital accumulation and welfare. With realisticparameters, inflation has large negative effects on welfare even though itraises capital and output. In contrast, with cash-in-advance, a deviceinformally motivated with bilateral trading, inflation depresses capitaland output and has a negligible effect on welfare.

Employee referrals and the inter-industry wage structure

This paper investigates the role of employee referrals in the labor market.Using an original data set, I find that industries that pay wage premia andhave characteristics associated with high-wage sectors rely mainly on employeereferrals to fill jobs. Moreover, unemployment rates are higher in industries which use employee referrals more extensively. This paper develops an equilibrium matching model which can explain these empirical regularities. Inthis model, the matching process sorts heterogeneous firms and workers into two distinct groups: referrals match "good" jobs to "good" workers, while formalmethods (e.g., newspaper ads and employment agencies) match less-attractive jobs to disadvantaged workers. Thus, well-connected workers who learn quickly aboutjob opportunities use referrals to jump job queues, while those who are less well placed in the labor market search for jobs through formal methods. The split of firms and workers between referrals and formal search is, however, not necessarily efficient. Congestion externalities in referral search imply that unemployment would be closer to the optimal rate if firms and workers 'at themargin' searched formally.

Endogeneous matching in university-industry collaboration: Theory and empirical evidence from the UK

We develop a two-sided matching model to analyze collaboration between heterogeneousacademics and firms. We predict a positive assortative matching in terms of both scientificability and affinity for type of research, but negative assortative in terms of ability on one sideand affinity in the other. In addition, the most able and most applied academics and the mostable and most basic firms shall collaborate rather than stay independent. Our predictionsreceive strong support from the analysis of the teams of academics and firms that proposeresearch projects to the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

Labor market heterogeneity and the aggregate matching function

The matching function -a key building block in models of labor market frictions- impliesthat the job finding rate depends only on labor market tightness. We estimate such amatching function and find that the relation, although remarkably stable over 1967-2007,broke down spectacularly after 2007. We argue that labor market heterogeneities are notfully captured by the standard matching function, but that a generalized matching functionthat explicitly takes into account worker heterogeneity and market segmentation is fullyconsistent with the behavior of the job finding rate. The standard matching function canbreak down when, as in the Great Recession, the average characteristics of the unemployedchange too much, or when dispersion in labor market conditions -the extent to which somelabor markets fare worse than others- increases too much.

Employment risk, unemployment insurance and search strategies: a disaggregated equilibrium approach with application to the Swiss labour market in the 1990-ies

The Organization of the Thesis The remainder of the thesis comprises five chapters and a conclusion. The next chapter formalizes the envisioned theory into a tractable model. Section 2.2 presents a formal description of the model economy: the individual heterogeneity, the individual objective, the UI setting, the population dynamics and the equilibrium. The welfare and efficiency criteria for qualifying various equilibrium outcomes are proposed in section 2.3. The fourth section shows how the model-generated information can be computed. Chapter 3 transposes the model from chapter 2 in conditions that enable its use in the analysis of individual labor market strategies and their implications for the labor market equilibrium. In section 3.2 the Swiss labor market data sets, stylized facts, and the UI system are presented. The third section outlines and motivates the parameterization method. In section 3.4 the model's replication ability is evaluated and some aspects of the parameter choice are discussed. Numerical solution issues can be found in the appendix. Chapter 4 examines the determinants of search-strategic behavior in the model economy and its implications for the labor market aggregates. In section 4.2, the unemployment duration distribution is examined and related to search strategies. Section 4.3 shows how the search- strategic behavior is influenced by the UI eligibility and section 4.4 how it is determined by individual heterogeneity. The composition effects generated by search strategies in labor market aggregates are examined in section 4.5. The last section evaluates the model's replication of empirical unemployment escape frequencies reported in Sheldon [67]. Chapter 5 applies the model economy to examine the effects on the labor market equilibrium of shocks to the labor market risk structure, to the deep underlying labor market structure and to the UI setting. Section 5.2 examines the effects of the labor market risk structure on the labor market equilibrium and the labor market strategic behavior. The effects of alterations in the labor market deep economic structural parameters, i.e. individual preferences and production technology, are shown in Section 5.3. Finally, the UI setting impacts on the labor market are studied in Section 5.4. This section also evaluates the role of the UI authority monitoring and the differences in the Way changes in the replacement rate and the UI benefit duration affect the labor market. In chapter 6 the model economy is applied in counterfactual experiments to assess several aspects of the Swiss labor market movements in the nineties. Section 6.2 examines the two equilibria characterizing the Swiss labor market in the nineties, the " growth" equilibrium with a "moderate" UI regime and the "recession" equilibrium with a more "generous" UI. Section 6.3 evaluates the isolated effects of the structural shocks, while the isolated effects of the UI reforms are analyzed in section 6.4. Particular dimensions of the UI reforms, the duration, replacement rate and the tax rate effects, are studied in section 6.5, while labor market equilibria without benefits are evaluated in section 6.6. In section 6.7 the structural and institutional interactions that may act as unemployment amplifiers are discussed in view of the obtained results. A welfare analysis based on individual welfare in different structural and UI settings is presented in the eighth section. Finally, the results are related to more favorable unemployment trends after 1997. The conclusion evaluates the features embodied in the model economy with respect to the resulting model dynamics to derive lessons from the model design." The thesis ends by proposing guidelines for future improvements of the model and directions for further research.

A comparison of one- and two-compartment neighbourhoods in heuristic search with spatial forest management goals

Abstract

Anther culture properties of oat x wild red oat progenies and a search for RAPD markers associated with anther culture ability

Selostus: Ponsiviljeltävyys ja siihen liittyvät geenimerkit peltokauran ja susikauran risteytysjälkeläisissä

Finding an apprenticeship : hidden curriculum and social consequences

In Switzerland, the majority of students are oriented towards professional training after compulsory schooling. At this stage, one of the biggest challenges for them is to find an apprenticeship position. Matching supply and demand is a complex process that not only excludes some students from having direct access to professional training but also forces them to make early choices regarding their future sector of employment. So, how does one find an apprenticeship? And what do the students' descriptions of their search for apprenticeships reveal about the institutional determinants of social inequalities at play in the system? Based on 29 interviews conducted in 2014 with 23 apprentices and 6 recruiters in the Canton of Vaud, this article interrogates how the dimensions of educational and social trajectories combine to affect access to apprenticeships and are accentuated by recruiters using a "hidden curriculum" during the recruitment process. A hidden curriculum consists of knowledge and skills not taught by the educational institution but which appear decisive in obtaining an apprenticeship. By analysing the contrasting experiences of students in their search for an apprenticeship, we identify four types of trajectories that explain different types of school-to-apprenticeship transitions. We show how these determinants are reinforced by the "hidden curriculum" of recruitment based on the soft skills of feeling, autonomy, anticipation and reflexivity that are assessed in the context of recruitment interactions. The discussion section debates how the criteria that appear to be used to identify the "right apprentice" tend to (re)produce inequalities between students. This not only depends on their academic results but also on their social and cultural skills, their ability to anticipate their choices and, more widely, their ability to be a subject in their recruitment search. "The Subject is neither the individual, nor the self, but the work through which an individual transforms into an actor, meaning an agent able to transform his/her situation instead of reproducing it." (Touraine, 1992, p.476).