This study examines the causal link between individuals' occupational knowledge, educational choices, and labor market outcomes. We proxy occupational knowledge with mandatory visits to job information centers (JICs) in Germany while still attending school. Exogenous variation in the location...

This paper studies the causal effect of student internship experience on labor market choices and wages later in life. We use variation in the introduction and abolishment of mandatory internships at German universities as an instrument for completing an internship while attending university....

This paper studies the causal effect of student internship experience in firms on earnings later in life. We use mandatory firm internships at German universities as an instrument for doing a firm internship while attending university. Employing longitudinal data from graduate surveys, we find...

After a decade in which wages and employment fell precipitously in low-skill occupations and expanded in high-skill occupations, the shape of U.S. earnings and job growth sharply polarized in the 1990s. Employment shares and relative earnings rose in both low and high-skill jobs, leading to a...

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 offer an integrated explanation and empirical analysis of the polarization of U.S. employment and wages between 1980 and 2005, and the concurrent growth of low skill service occupations. We attribute polarization to the interaction between consumer preferences, which favor variety over...