Search Results
Report
The Pay and Non-Pay Content of Job Ads
How informative are job ads about the actual pay and amenities offered by employers? Using a comprehensive database of job ads posted by Norwegian employers, we develop a methodology to systematically classify the information on both pay and non-pay job attributes advertised in vacancy texts. We link this information to measures of employer attractiveness, which we derive from a job search model estimated on observed wages and worker mobility flows. About 55 percent of job ads provide information related to pay and nearly all ads feature information on non-pay attributes. We show that ...
Briefing
Switching Occupational Categories
Worker mobility, across jobs and across state lines, has fallen in recent decades. Changing jobs is one way workers gain new skills and improve their wages. New research also suggests that switching between white-collar and blue-collar occupations enables workers to learn valuable information about their abilities and the types of jobs they are best suited for. Any frictions inhibiting the ability of workers to switch occupations would be costly, particularly for young workers.
Working Paper
Places versus People: The Ins and Outs of Labor Market Adjustment to Globalization
This chapter analyzes the distinct adjustment paths of U.S. labor markets (places) and U.S. workers (people) to increased Chinese import competition during the 2000s. Using comprehensive register data for 2000–2019, we document that employment levels more than fully rebound in trade-exposed places after 2010, while employment-to-population ratios remain depressed and manufacturing employment further atrophies. The adjustment of places to trade shocks is generational: affected areas recover primarily by adding workers to non-manufacturing who were below working age when the shock occurred. ...
Working Paper
The Fatal Consequences of Brain Drain
We examine the welfare consequences of reallocating high-skilled labor across national borders. A labor demand shock in Norway—driven by a surge in oil prices—substantially increased physician wages and sharply raised the incentive for Swedish doctors to commute across the border. Leveraging linked administrative data across the two countries and a difference-in-differences design, we show that this shift doubled commuting rates and significantly reduced Sweden’s domestic physician supply. The result was a persistent rise in mortality in Sweden, with no corresponding health gains in ...