What new tools and models are enriching labor economics? "Developments in Research Methods and their Application" (volume 4A) summarizes recent advances in the ways economists study wages, employment, and labor markets. Mixing conceptual models and empirical work, contributors cover subjects as diverse as field and laboratory experiments, program evaluation, and behavioral models. The combinations of these improved empirical findings with new models reveal how labor economists are developing new and innovative ways to measure key parameters and test important hypotheses.

Developments in Research Methods and their Application
1. Decomposition Methods in Economics
Nicole Fortin (University of British Columbia), Thomas Lemieux (University of British Columbia), and Sergio Firpo (Escola de Economia de São Paulo)
2. Field Experiments in Labor Economics
John List (University of Chicago) and Imran Rasul (University College London)
3. Lab Labor: What Can Labor Economists Learn from the Lab?
Gary Charness and Peter Kuhn (University of California at Santa Barbara)
4. The Structural Estimation of Behavioral Models: Discrete Choice Dynamic Programming Methods and Applications
Michael P. Keane (University of Technology, New South Wales), Kenneth I. Wolpin and Petra E. Todd (University of Pennsylvania)
5. Program Evaluation and Research Designs
John DiNardo (University of Michigan) and David S. Lee (Princeton University)
6. Identification of Models of Labor Market
Eric French (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago) and Christopher Taber (University of Wisconsin at Madison)
7. Search in Macroeconomic Models of the Labor Market
Richard Rogerson (Arizona State University) and Robert Shimer (University of Chicago)
8. Extrinsic Rewards and Intrinsic Motives: Standard and Behavioral Approaches to Agency and Labor Markets
James B. Rebitzer (Boston University) and Lowell J. Taylor (Carnegie Mellon University)