We document three new facts about entrepreneurship. First, a majority of male entrepreneurs start a firm in the same or a closely related industry as their fathers' industry of employment. Second, this tendency is correlated with intelligence: higher-IQ entrepreneurs are less likely to follow...

We study the sources of match-specific value at large American law firms by analyzing how graduates of law schools group into law firms. We measure the degree to which lawyers from certain schools concentrate within firms and then analyze how this agglomeration can be explained by "natural...

This paper studies a possible link between two trends that have affected the labor market over the last decade: increases in wrongful termination litigation and increasing frequency of mass layoffs. We model the displacement strategy of a firm faced with concave displacement costs and employees...

The Civil Rights Act of 1991 (CRA91) was enacted after a rancorous debate about whether it was a "quota" hiring bill or a necessary means of opening labor markets. In this paper, we analyze the effects of CRA91 on the composition of firms' workforces. We consider employer behavior when firms...

We study the relationship between maximum damage awards available to plaintiffs in wrongful termination lawsuits and the returns to experience among protected workers. In our model, firms dismiss some workers for cause (as they learn about worker ability), but may also discriminate. If factors...

We study a possible link between two recent U.S. labor market trends: increased wrongful termination litigation and more frequent mass layoffs. We argue that if workers are more likely to sue when fired than when dismissed as part of a layoff, then increases in the expected costs to firms of...

We study the relationship between maximum damage awards available to plaintiffs in wrongful termination lawsuits and the returns to experience among protected workers. In our model, firms dismiss some workers for cause (as they learn about worker ability), but may also discriminate. If factors...

The Civil Rights Act of 1991 (CRA91) was enacted after a rancorous debate about whether it was a "quota" hiring bill or a necessary means of opening labor markets. We analyze the effects of CRA91 on the composition of firms' workforces. We consider employer behavior when firms vary in their...

I study the human capital development and firm-worker matching processes for PhD economists. This group is useful for this purpose because the types of jobs they hold can be easily categorized and they have an observable productivity measure (that is, publications.) I derive a two-period model...

Each year, graduate students entering the academic job market worry that they will suffer due to uncontrollable macroeconomic risk. Given the importance of general human capital and the relative ease of publicly observing productivity in academia, one might expect unlucky graduating cohorts'...