Opening the Black Box of the Matching Function: the Power of Words

Marinescu, Ioana; Wolthoff, Ronald P.

doi:10.3386/w22508

Cited by 32 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…Going from the 25th percentile of market concentration to the 75th percentile of market concentration is associated with a decline in wages of 5% using specification (3), and of 17% using specification (6), our baseline specification for the IV. 5 Marinescu and Wolthoff (2016) showed that job titles are an important predictor of wages and are informative about the type of job and required skills beyond a pure wage-signalling effect. We are thus interested in studying to what extent market concentration affects wages through job titles and to what extent it has a direct effect beyond the effect that can be explained by job titles.…”

Section: Regression Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Labor Market Concentration

2017

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Any opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research published in this series may include views on policy, but IZA takes no institutional policy positions. The IZA research network is committed to the IZA Guiding Principles of Research Integrity. The IZA Institute of Labor Economics is an independent economic research institute that conducts research in labor economics and offers evidence-based policy advice on labor market issues. Supported by the Deutsche Post Foundation, IZA runs the world's largest network of economists, whose research aims to provide answers to the global labor market challenges of our time. Our key objective is to build bridges between academic research, policymakers and society. IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author.

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Section: Regression Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We perform a number of additional robustness checks. Most importantly, Marinescu and Wolthoff (2016) show that posted wages are largely explained by job titles. Therefore, it is important to control for heterogeneity by job title to get an estimate of the impact of concentration on wages for a given job type.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Labor Market Concentration

2017

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“…Our work is also related to models of labor market search that allow for a notion of search intensity (Costain, 1997;Pissarides, 2000;Shimer, 2004;Christiansen et al, 2005; among others). Finally, our paper is related to the growing literature that studies online job search (e.g., Kuhn and Skuterud, 2004;Kroft and Pope, 2014;Brown and Matsa, 2012;Kudlyak, Lkhgvasuren, and Sysuyev, 2013;Marinescu and Wolthoff, 2015), and to the literature that studies hiring and vacancies (Barron, Bishop, and Dunkelberg, 1985;Holzer, Katz, and Krueger, 1991;Davis, Faberman, and Haltiwanger, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Intensity of Job Search and Search Duration

Faberman

Kudlyak

2016

ERWP

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We use panel data on individual applications to job openings on a job search website to study search intensity and search duration. Our data allow us to control for the composition of job seekers and changes in the number of available job openings over the duration of search. We find that (1) the number of applications sent by a job seeker declines over the duration of search, and (2) longer-duration job seekers send relatively more applications per week throughout their entire search. The latter finding contradicts the implications of standard labor search models. We argue that these models fail to capture an income effect in search effort that causes job seekers with the lowest returns to search to exert the highest effort. We present evidence in support of this idea.

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“…One quite remarkable feature of our data is that we are able not only to explore outcomes for aggregate conditions at the local level, but also to track outcomes for individual positions. Previous research has shown that most of the variation in posted wages and in the experience and education level of applicants is explained by job titles (Marinescu and Wolthoff 2015). Thus, controlling for job title by firm demonstrates that employers decrease requirements for the same job title in response to the declining availability of workers.…”

Section: Controlling For Changes In Employer Composition and Data mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Previous research has shown that most of the variation in posted wages and in the experience and education level of applicants is explained by job titles (Marinescu and Wolthoff 2015).…”

Section: Empirical Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Downskilling: Changes in Employer Skill Requirements Over the Business Cycle

2016

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Using a novel database of 82.5 million online job postings, we show that employer skill requirements fell as the labor market improved from 2010 to 2014. We find that a 1 percentage point reduction in the local unemployment rate is associated with a roughly 0.27 percentage point reduction in the fraction of jobs requiring at least a bachelor's degree and a roughly 0.23 percentage point reduction in the fraction requiring five or more years of experience. This pattern is established using multiple measures of labor availability, is bolstered by similar trends along heretofore unmeasured dimensions of skill, and even occurs within firm-job title pairs. We further confirm the causal effect of labor market tightening on skill requirements using a natural experiment based on the fracking boom in the United States as an exogenous shock to the local labor supply in tradable, non-fracking industries. These industries are not plausibly affected by local demand shocks or natural gas extraction technology, but still show fewer skill requirements in response to tighter labor markets. Our results imply this labor market-induced downskilling reversed much of the cyclical increase in education and experience requirements that occurred during the Great Recession. Terms of use: Documents inJEL classifications: D22, E24, J23, J24, J63.

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Opening the Black Box of the Matching Function: the Power of Words

Cited by 32 publications

References 71 publications

Labor Market Concentration

Labor Market Concentration

The Intensity of Job Search and Search Duration

Downskilling: Changes in Employer Skill Requirements Over the Business Cycle

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