The U-Shapes of Occupational Mobility

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Groes, Fane; Kircher, Philipp; Manovskii, Iourii
• 署名单位: Copenhagen Business School; University of Edinburgh; University of Pennsylvania
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMIC STUDIES
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6527
• DOI: 10.1093/restud/rdu037
• 发表日期: 2015
• 页码: 659-692
• 关键词: UNITED-STATES; job mobility; wage; search

摘要

Using administrative panel data on the entire Danish population we document a new set of facts characterizing occupational mobility. For most occupations, mobility is U-shaped and directional: not only low but also high wage earners within an occupation have a particularly large probability of leaving their occupation, and the low (high) earners tend to switch to new occupations with lower (higher) average wages. Exceptions to this pattern of two-sided selection are occupations with steeply rising (declining) productivity, where mainly the lower (higher) paid workers within this occupation tend to leave. The facts conflict with several existing theories that are used to account for endogeneity in occupational choice, but it is shown analytically that the patterns are explained consistently within a theory of vertical sorting under absolute advantage that includes learning about workers' abilities.