Social networks, marital sorting and job matching Three essays in labor economics

This dissertation consists of three independent studies in labor economics. The second chapter analyzes the long-run consequences of educational expansion. We show both theoretically and empirically how rising university attendance rates of previous generations can explain increasing earnings inequality. Chapter 3 focuses on the intergenerational effects of social networks. The empirical study examines whether the number and characteristics of friendship connections of parents have an impact on occupational choices and expected earnings of children. Finally, the fourth chapter centers on a large-scale field experiment to test the effectiveness of a novel job matching scheme. This unique set-up allows us to learn about the relevance of search frictions in the labor market as well as long-run effects of taking up temporary work.