Between 1997 and 2000, the Canadian province of Quebec reduced its standard workweek from 44 to 40 hours with the aim of stimulating employment growth. Unlike the European work‐sharing policies examined elsewhere, the Quebec policy contained no suggestion or requirement that employers provide wage increases to compensate workers for lost hours. For this reason, among others, the Quebec policy provides a better test of the potential of work‐sharing as a job‐creation strategy. The evidence suggests that, despite a 20% reduction among full‐time workers in weekly hours worked beyond 40, the policy failed to raise employment at either the provincial level or within industries where hours of work were affected relatively more.

Using the December 1998 and August 2000 CPS Computer and Internet Supplements matched with subsequent CPS files, we ask which types of unemployed workers looked for work on line and whether Internet searchers became reemployed more quickly. In our data, Internet searchers have observed characteristics that are typically associated with shorter unemployment spells, and do spend less time unemployed. This unemployment differential is however eliminated and in some cases reversed when we hold observable characteristics constant. We conclude that either Internet job search is ineffective in reducing unemployment durations, or Internet job searchers are negatively selected on unobservables.

We examine data from Australia, Canada, and the United States to assess the potential for immigrant screening policies to influence the labor market performance of skilled immigrants. Our estimates point to improvements in employment rates and weekly earnings of male university-educated immigrants in all three countries concomitant with policy reforms. Nonetheless, the gains are modest in comparison to a substantial and persistent performance advantage of US skilled immigrants. Given that there is increasingly little to distinguish the screening policies of these countries, we interpret the US advantage as primarily reflecting the relative positive self-selectivity of US immigrants.