Large truck crashes remain a significant problem in the truckload sector of the US motor carrier industry. Employing a unique firm-level data set from a large US truckload motor carrier, we identified two different driver groups hired during two distinct pay regimes. Before-and-after data on wages and safety outcomes created a natural experiment. Higher wages paid to experienced drivers in the new pay regime led to higher driver retention rates. Experienced drivers had lower average crash costs and were more productive during each tenure month. Experienced drivers had a much larger expected discounted net present value when compared with inexperienced drivers. As the previously inexperienced drivers gained additional experience, their crash probabilities and their value began to mirror those of the experienced drivers, demonstrating the value of greater tenure. This research supports ‘safe rates’ public policy because safety pays – for trucking companies, for cargo owners and for society.

I consider an economy growing along the balanced growth path that is hit by an adverse shock to its capital accumulation process. The model integrates efficiency wages due to imperfect monitoring of the quality of labor in a search and matching framework with methods of dynamic general equilibrium analysis. I show that, depending on the firms' abilities to assess workers' performance, the discipline device role of unemployment may account for sharp declines in employment and jobless recoveries driven by exceptional increases in the work effort of employees. The model also explains why rigid real wages may prevail in equilibrium: the large movements in unemployment are indeed associated with real wage rigidity, which is generated endogenously by efficiency wages.

The development of postal services has played an indisputable role in industrialization, market integration and state formation. Smooth functioning of these services depended on the existence of a well-paid and motivated body of civil servants. I study the organization of the internal labour market for civil servants in postal services in Spain from 1890 to 1935 showing a career in the postal services offered high entry wages, growing wages over the life cycle, and a secure job until retirement. There were two downsides to pursuing a career in the postal services. Firstly, entry and promotion depended on the expansion of employment. Secondly, nominal wages were upward rigid, causing large real wage losses during WWI.