The recent shift to remote work raised the amenity value of employment. As compensation adjusts to share the amenity-value gains with employers, wage-growth pressures moderate. We find empirical support for this mechanism in the wage-setting behavior of U.S. employers, and we develop novel...

We study the importance of firm sorting for spatial inequality. If productive locations are able to attract the most productive firms, then firm sorting acts as an amplifier of spatial inequality. We develop a novel model of spatial firm sorting, in which heterogeneous firms first choose a...

Most economists maintain that the labor market in the United States is 'tight' because unemployment rates are low. They infer from this that there is potential for wage-push inflation. However, real wages are falling rapidly at present and, prior to that, real wages had been stagnant for some...

Previous research finds that the greater geographic mobility of foreign than native-born workers following economic shocks helps to facilitate local labor market adjustment to shifting regional economic conditions. We examine the role that immigration may have played in enabling U.S. commuting...

Using an administrative payroll dataset for 2.6 million retail workers, we find that the staggered rollout of a major e-commerce firm's fulfillment centers reduces traditional retail workers' income in geographically proximate counties by 2.4%. Wages of hourly workers, especially part-time...

We study the effects of the unionization of faculty at Canadian universities from 1970-2022 using an event-study design. Using administrative data which covers the full universe of faculty salaries, we find strong evidence that unionization leads to both average salary gains and compression of...

Ways of leaving the labor force has been an understudied aspect of labor market outcomes. Labor market institutions such as occupational licensing may influence how individuals transition to retirement. When and how workers transition from career jobs to full retirement may contribute to pre-...

How will the emergence of ChatGPT and other forms of artificial intelligence (AI) affect the skill premium? To address this question, we propose a nested constant elasticity of substitution production function that distinguishes among three types of capital: traditional physical capital...

We examine US workers' employment and earnings before and after trade liberalization with China. Among workers initially employed in manufacturing, we find substantial and persistent declines in both outcomes, with indirect exposure via input-output linkages exacerbating the negative effects of...

Two extraordinary U.S. labor market developments facilitated the sharp disinflation in 2022-23 without raising the unemployment rate. First, pandemic-driven infection worries and social distancing intentions caused a sizable drag on labor force participation that began to reverse in the first...