We document a U-shaped relationship between within-job wage changes and separations in administrative data from Italy, Germany, and Austria. To interpret this relationship, we estimate a random-search model with worker and firm heterogeneity, learning, persistent match productivity, and wage renegotiation, using Italian data. For Italy, matching the U-shape attributes the decline in wage volatility primarily to learning and implies a 14.5-year half-life for match productivity. Imperfect information lowers output by 0.229 percent through misallocated mobility. Omitting the U-shape moments attributes the volatility decline to negotiation history, shortens the half-life to 3.5 years, and reduces the output loss to 0.073 percent.

Governments increasingly tie clean-technology subsidies to social and industrial aims, hoping to accelerate decarbonization while nurturing domestic production. France’s 2024 reform embeds a life-cycle environmental score in its electric-vehicle (EV) purchase bonus (based on estimated emissions during the production process). Linking exhaustive French registration records to assembly plants and battery origins, we exploit the sharp January-2024 eligibility shock in a difference-in-differences design. Treated EV models experience 60% decline in sales relative to EVs remaining eligible. We combine these estimates with survey-based stated preferences in order to estimate a nested-logit demand system. Model-based counterfactuals suggest that the reform reduced total EV penetration by about 1 pp, implying slower fleet decarbonization. The reform cut both public spending and consumer surplus and raised tank-to-wheel emissions enough to offset manufacturing-stage CO2 gains, resulting in more emissions. A budget-neutral variant that recycles the fiscal savings into larger bonuses for eligible models would restore the lost electrification, and would cost about €4,500 of consumer surplus per reshored battery while generating positive net environmental gains.