This paper exploits a new matched universal and longitudinal employer-employee database at the US Census Bureau to empirically investigate the link between firms' choice of worker mix and the implied relationships between productivity and wages. We particularly focus on the decision making...

The rise of the “gig economy” has attracted wide attention from both scholars and the popular media. Much of this attention has been devoted to jobs mediated through various online platforms. While non-traditional work arrangements have been a perennial subject of debate and study, the...

Using a large data set that links individual Current Population Survey (CPS) records to employer-reported administrative data, we document substantial discrepancies in basic measures of employment status that persist even after controlling for known definitional differences between the two data...

We find that most of the rising between firm earnings inequality that dominates the overall increase in inequality in the U.S. is accounted for by industry effects. These industry effects stem from rising inter-industry earnings differentials and not from changing distribution of employment...

It is well known that the long-term unemployed fare worse in the labor market than the short-term unemployed, but less clear why this is so. One potential explanation is that the long-term unemployed are “bad apples” who had poorer prospects from the outset of their spells (heterogeneity)....

Innovation in the U.S. economy is about employing and rewarding highly talented workers to produce new products. Using unique longitudinal matched employer-employee data, this paper makes a key connection between talent and firms in markets with risky product innovations. We show that software...

We estimate the effects of technology investments on the demand for skilled workers using longitudinally integrated employer-employee data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Program infrastructure files spanning two Economic Censuses (1992 and 1997). We...

The recession of 2007-09 witnessed high rates of unemployment that have been slow to recede. This has led many to conclude that structural changes have occurred in the labor market and that the economy will not return to the low rates of unemployment that prevailed in the recent past. Is this...

Churn, defined as replacing departing workers with new ones as workers move to more productive uses, is an important feature of labor dynamics. The majority of hiring and separation reflects churn rather than hiring for expansion or separation for contraction. Using the JOLTS data, we show that...

Funding of research is critically important because it affects the flow of new, doctorally qualified scientists into the workforce. This paper provides new insights into how survey data can be combined with administrative records to examine the ways in which funding affects workforce decisions....