It is widely recognized that inequality of labor market earnings in the United States grew dramatically in recent decades. Over the course of more than three decades, wage growth was weak to nonexistent at the bottom of the distribution, strong at the top of the distribution, and modest at the...

"An emerging literature argues that changes in the allocation of workplace 'tasks' between capital and labor, and between domestic and foreign workers, has altered the structure of labor demand in industrialized countries and fostered employment polarization - that is, rising employment in the...

We measure the capitalization of housing market externalities into residential housing values by studying the unanticipated elimination of stringent rent controls in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1995. Pooling data on the universe of assessed values and transacted prices of Cambridge residential...

We analyze the effect of exposure to international trade on earnings and employment of U.S. workers from 1992 through 2007 by exploiting industry shocks to import competition stemming from China’s spectacular rise as a manufacturing exporter paired with longitudinal data on individual earnings...

Economists have long recognized that free trade has the potential to raise countries' living standards. But what applies to a country as a whole need not apply to all its citizens. Workers displaced by trade cannot change jobs costlessly, and by reshaping skill demands, trade integration is...

We exploit the gender-specific components of large-scale labor demand shocks stemming from rising international manufacturing competition to test how shifts in the relative economic stature of young men versus young women affected marriage, fertility and children’s living circumstances during...

The recent fall of labor’s share of GDP in numerous countries is well-documented, but its causes are poorly understood. We sketch a “superstar firm” model where industries are increasingly characterized by “winner take most” competition, leading a small number of highly profitable (and...

An emerging literature argues that changes in the allocation of workplace 'tasks' between capital and labor, and between domestic and foreign workers, has altered the structure of labor demand in industrialized countries and fostered employment polarization - that is, rising employment in the...