TY  - JOUR
AU  - Oyer,Paul
TI  - Ability and Employer Learning: Evidence from the Economist Labor Market
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 12989
PY  - 2007
Y2  - March 2007
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12989
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12989.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Paul Oyer
Graduate School of Business
Stanford University
518 Memorial Way
Stanford, CA 94305-5015
Tel: 650/736-1047
Fax: 650/725-0468
E-Mail: pauloyer@stanford.edu
M3  - presented at "TRIO Conference", December 15-16, 2006
AB  - I study the human capital development and firm-worker matching processes for PhD economists. This group is useful for this purpose because the types of jobs they hold can be easily categorized and they have an observable productivity measure (that is, publications.) I derive a two-period model to motivate an empirical analysis of economist job matching upon graduation, matching ten years later, and productivity in the first ten years. I show that matching to a higher ranked institution affects productivity. I present evidence that employers improve their estimates of economists' ability early in their career in a way that determines longer-term job placement. I also find that the initial placement of economists to institutions does not show much evidence of systematic misallocation along observable characteristics.
ER  -