The main chapters of this book, “Essays on Labour Markets”, focus on analyzing the dynamics of the employment relationship between workers and firms (chapters 2 and 3), modelling occupational segregation and labour market inequalities between social groups (chapter 4) and characterizing the link between a firm’s health & safety work conditions and its financial performance (chapter 5). Each essay contributes with original insights often using innovative and uncommon techniques, such as real options theory applied to wage-tenure profile analysis, social network analysis of occupational segregation, or estimation of firm production functions augmented with workplace environment indicators. Particularly intriguing conclusions of this thesis include: the effect of the selectivity on the worker’s outside option explains the largest part of the observed wage-tenure profiles; at least part of the wage return to “tenure” is in fact a wage return to “s! eniority”, i.e. the worker’s position in the tenure hierarchy of her firm; if informal contacts are relevant in job search, occupational segregation is the optimal social welfare policy for social groups with homophilous preferences; improving certain physical dimensions of the workplace health & safety environment raises a firm’s productivity, whereas other dimensions do not appear to matter in this regard.

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Tinbergen Institute
C.N. Teulings (Coen)
hdl.handle.net/1765/13965
Tinbergen Instituut Research Series
Erasmus School of Economics

Buhai, S. (2008, November 27). Essays on Labour Markets: Worker-Firm Dynamics, Occupational Segregation and Workplace Conditions (No. 431). Tinbergen Instituut Research Series. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/1765/13965