The nature of human capital investments and the design of labor market institutions.

Summary Education is an investment that finds its return in the labor market, but labor market frictions affect both the level and nature of educational investments. At the same time, the skills acquired during schooling condition the design of labor market institutions.We propose three chapters, each of which examines a particular issue.The first presents a model of labor market mismatch in which the degree of mismatch between workers and jobs is endogenous: it depends on educational efforts (which reduce the mismatch) and technological investments (which increase it). We examine the impact of uncertainty about the future work partner, heterogeneity of workers with respect to their educational ability, and risk aversion.The second constructs a matching model with specialists and generalists in which the proportion of specialists is endogenous. The nature of human capital determines the number of queues in which the worker can prospect and his rank in each queue. Education carries several externalities: specialists promote job creation in each sector . generalists improve the efficiency of matching technology but worsen the coordination problem of firms. We calibrate the model on aggregate data for 20 OECD countries. Self-selection is always inefficient: taxing vocational training could reduce the unemployment rate by more than one percentage point.The third studies the design of unemployment insurance in a context where workers differ in the nature of their human capital. We show that, depending on the scenario chosen for the management of the insurance fund, the proportion of specialists can lead to a decrease or an increase in the replacement rate of the optimal unemployment benefit.