Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics
Working Paper Series,
Research Institute of Industrial Economics
No 1072: Firms and Skills: The Evolution of Worker Sorting
Christina Håkanson (), Erik Lindqvist () and Jonas Vlachos ()
Additional contact information
Christina Håkanson: Sveriges Riksbank
Erik Lindqvist: Stockholm School of Economics, Postal: and the Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN), Stockholm, Sweden
Jonas Vlachos: Department of Economics,, Postal: Stockholm University, and the Research Institute of Industrial Economics(IFN), Stockholm, Sweden
Abstract: We document a significant increase in the sorting of workers by cognitive and non-cognitive skills across Swedish firms between 1986 and 2008. The weight of the evidence suggests that the increase in sorting is due to stronger complementarities between worker skills and technology. In particular, a large fraction of the increase can be explained by the expansion of the ICT sector and a reallocation of engineers across firms. We also find evidence of increasing assortative matching, in the sense that workers who are particularly skilled in their respective educational groups are more likely to work in the same firms. Changes in sorting patterns and skill gradients can account for a about half of the increase in between-firm wage dispersion.
Keywords: Skill sorting; Skilled-biased technological change; Outsourcing; Globalization; Cognitive skills; Non-cognitive skills; Personality; Employer-employee matched data
Language: English
81 pages, June 4, 2015
Full text files
wp1072.pdf
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