This paper tackles some issues in personnel economics using the career profiles of British naval officers during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. We ask how promotions, payouts, positions, and peers affect worker retention. Random variation in task assignments and job promotions allows us...

We analyze the job matching process for skilled labor using an extensive panel dataset of naval officer careers during the Second Industrial Revolution. We find strong separation effects for officers with accumulated skills in technology-focused work and/or those with formal training as...

This paper explores the roles of capital- and technology-skill complementarities in labor allocation decisions within the U.S. Navy. During the latter 19th century the ocer corps was highly specialized, and was split between groups of line and sta ocers. This was also a time of dramatic...

This paper explores the role of human capital on earnings and other measures of job performance during the late 19th century. During this time, U.S. Naval ocers belonged either to a regular or an engineer corps and had tasks assigned to their specialized training and experience. To test for the...