Policymakers often promote the importance of STEM jobs but are concerned about the underrepresentation of women and minorities in these jobs. However, there is no agreed-upon definition of STEM jobs. I use occupation task data from O*Net to analyze the STEM task content of occupations, drawing...

We study how complementarities in skill may affect the returns to vocational training using a randomized controlled trial in Cairo, Egypt. Participants, who were college-educated, were either given a 4-week training in soft skills (e.g., grooming, time management), technical skills (e.g.,...

Expected earnings matter for college major choices, and majors differ in both their average earnings and the age profile of their earnings. We show that students’ family background is strongly related to the earnings paths of the major they choose. Students with more educated parents,...

More than two-thirds of STEM jobs are held by men. This paper provides a detailed analysis of the STEM pipeline from high school to mid-career in the United States, decomposing the gender gap in STEM into six stages. By far the most important stages are the initial college major choice and the...

We use job vacancy data collected in real time by Burning Glass Technologies, as well as unemployment insurance (UI) initial claims and the more traditional Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) employment data to study the impact of COVID-19 on the labor market. Our job vacancy data allow us to...

We study whether workers progress up firm wage and size job ladders, and the cyclicality of this movement. Search theory predicts that workers should flow towards larger, higher paying firms. However, we see little evidence of a firm size ladder, partly because small, young firms poach workers...

We study how heterogeneity in performance evaluations across supervisors affects employee and supervisor careers and firm outcomes using data on the performance system of a Scandinavian service sector firm. We show that supervisors vary widely in how they rate subordinates of similar quality. To...