"Occupational Switching and Wage Risk" download the paper abstract The literature on labor income risk treats the wage process as exogenous to workers, with few exceptions. However, observed wage dynamics are the result of both exogenous factors, such as productivity shocks, and workers' choices. Using data from administrative German social security records, I document that…

"Coordination of Hours within the Firm" Download the paper Abstract Teamwork has become increasingly important in many firms, yet little is known about how coordination of hours among heterogeneous coworkers affects pay, productivity and labor supply. In this paper we propose a framework where differently productive firms choose whether or not to coordinate hours in…

"Devotion and Development: Religiosity, Education, and Economic Progress in 19th-Century France" Download the paper abstract This paper uses a historical setting to study when religion can be a barrier for diffusion of knowledge and economic development, and through which mechanism. I focus on 19th-century Catholicism and analyze a crucial phase of modern economic growth, the…

"Dynamic (In)Consistency and the Value of Information" Download the paper abstract This paper develops a revealed-preference model of information disclosure. One decision maker, DM1, ranks information sources (Blackwell experiments) knowing that a second decision maker, DM2, uses the information to select an act from a menu. Both decision makers are subjective expected utility maximizers but…

"Entrepreneurs’ Wealth and Firm Dynamics" Download the paper abstract Owners of privately-held firms typically invest a large amount of their personal wealth into their firm. In principle, the wealth not invested in the firm may be used as a buffer to smooth shocks to the firm. Is such buffer stock behavior observed among privately-held firm…