Research
Working Papers
Worker Learning and Management (Job Market Paper)
draft
Abstract
Where do good managers come from? We present evidence for a coaching channel that builds portable skill -- evident in post-move wages and worker-to-manager moves. Using German administrative data, we document two facts about future managers: (1) exposure to higher-quality managers is associated with persistently higher wages once workers enter management and switch firms—even within the same destination establishment; and (2) higher current manager quality is linked to a lower short-run probability that a worker transitions into management. To reconcile these patterns, we build a framework with on-the-job search, endogenous coaching, and managerial transitions. The key mechanism combines an option value of learning channel, in which coaching builds portable managerial skill that lifts post-move wages, together with an incumbent value channel - high-quality managers raise the value of staying and thus depress near-term transitions. Our identification leverages the contrast that a non-learning benchmark implies no post-move portability conditional on the destination, whereas learning does. Calibrating the model to post-transition wage paths and to how transition hazards vary with manager-worker gap, we show that reallocating managerial time in coaching could bring output gains in the long run.Publication
Where Are the Workers? From Great Resignation to Quiet Quitting
with Jinhyeok Park and Yongseok Shin
paper
Abstract
To better understand the tight post-pandemic labor market in the US, we decompose the decline in aggregate hours worked into extensive margin changes (fewer people working) and intensive margin changes (workers working fewer hours). Although the preexisting trend of lower labor force participation, especially by young men without a bachelor's degree, accounts for some of the decline in aggregate hours, the intensive margin accounts for more than half of the decline between 2019 and 2022. The decline in hours among workers was larger for men than women. Among men, the decline was larger for those with a bachelor's degree than those with less education, for prime-age workers than older workers, and also for those who already worked long hours and had high earnings. The reduction in workers' hours can explain why the labor market is even tighter than what is expected at the current levels of unemployment and labor force participation.Work in Progress
Hours and Business cycles
with Alexander Bick and Yongseok Shin
Abstract
We study intensive- and extensive-margin adjustments in hours over the cycle across heterogeneous worker groups in the U.S. and selected European economies. We document systematic heterogeneity by gender, age, and education, and analyze how shifting workforce composition shapes aggregate labor fluctuations. We then develop a model with both margins of adjustment and ex-ante worker heterogeneity to assess how increasing flexibility in hours (via technology and evolving norms) alters extensive-margin responses.Recovering Historical Inflation Expectations Using Large Language Model (BERT)
with Miguel Faria-e-Castro, Fernando Leibovici and Yongseok Shin