[go: up one dir, main page]

IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/29708.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Identifying sorting: in theory

Author

Listed:
  • Eeckhout, Jan
  • Kircher, Philipp
Abstract
Assortative Matching between workers and firms provides evidence of the complementarities or substitutes in production. The presence of complementarities is important for policies that aim to achieve the optimal allocation of resources, for example unemployment insurance. We argue that using wage data alone, it is virtually impossible to identify whether Assortative Matching is positive or negative. Even though we cannot identify the sign of the sorting, we can identify the strength, i.e., the magnitude of the cross-partial, and the associated welfare loss. We show first that the wage for a given worker is non-monotonic in the type of his employer. This is due to the fact that in a sorting model, wages re ect the opportunity cost of mismatch. We show analytically that this non-monotonicity prevents standard form fixed effects to correlate with the true type of the form. We then propose an alternative procedure that measures the strength of sorting in the presence of search frictions. Knowing the strength of sorting facilitates the measurement of the output loss due to mismatch.

Suggested Citation

  • Eeckhout, Jan & Kircher, Philipp, 2011. "Identifying sorting: in theory," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 29708, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
  • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:29708
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/29708/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert Shimer & Lones Smith, 2000. "Assortative Matching and Search," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(2), pages 343-370, March.
    2. Pieter A. Gautier & Coen N. Teulings, 2006. "How Large are Search Frictions?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(6), pages 1193-1225, December.
    3. Mendes, Rute & van den Berg, Gerard J. & Lindeboom, Maarten, 2010. "An empirical assessment of assortative matching in the labor market," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(6), pages 919-929, December.
    4. Pierre Cahuc & Fabien Postel-Vinay & Jean-Marc Robin, 2006. "Wage Bargaining with On-the-Job Search: Theory and Evidence," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(2), pages 323-364, March.
    5. Ivar Ekeland & James J. Heckman & Lars Nesheim, 2004. "Identification and Estimation of Hedonic Models," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(S1), pages 60-109, February.
    6. Jeremy Lise & Costas Meghir & Jean-Marc Robin, 2016. "Matching, Sorting and Wages," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 19, pages 63-87, January.
    7. Daron Acemoglu & Robert Shimer, 1999. "Efficient Unemployment Insurance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(5), pages 893-928, October.
    8. Gerard J. Van Den Berg & Aïco Van Vuuren, 2002. "Using Firm Data to Assess the Performance of Equilibrium Search Models of the Labor Market," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 67-68, pages 227-256.
    9. Rasmus Lentz & Jesper Bagger, 2009. "An Empirical Model of Wage Dispersion with Sorting," 2009 Meeting Papers 964, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    10. Combes, Pierre-Philippe & Duranton, Gilles & Gobillon, Laurent, 2008. "Spatial wage disparities: Sorting matters!," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 723-742, March.
    11. Ivar Ekeland & James J. Heckman & Lars Nesheim, 2002. "Identifying Hedonic Models," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 304-309, May.
    12. Stefan Bender & Till von Wachter, 2006. "In the Right Place at the Wrong Time: The Role of Firms and Luck in Young Workers' Careers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1679-1705, December.
    13. Dupuy, Arnaud, 2010. "Sorting on Skills and Preferences: Tinbergen Meets Sattinger," IZA Discussion Papers 5143, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Shouyong Shi, 1998. "Frictional Assignment," Cahiers de recherche CREFE / CREFE Working Papers 74, CREFE, Université du Québec à Montréal.
    15. Axel Anderson & Lones Smith, 2010. "Dynamic Matching and Evolving Reputations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(1), pages 3-29.
    16. John M. Abowd & Francis Kramarz & David N. Margolis, 1999. "High Wage Workers and High Wage Firms," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(2), pages 251-334, March.
    17. Antonio Cabrales & Antoni Calvó-Armengol & Nicola Pavoni, 2008. "Social Preferences, Skill Segregation, and Wage Dynamics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(1), pages 65-98.
    18. repec:adr:anecst:y:2002:i:67-68:p:10 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Jan Eeckhout & Philipp Kircher, 2010. "Sorting and Decentralized Price Competition," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(2), pages 539-574, March.
    20. Alp E. Atakan, 2006. "Assortative Matching with Explicit Search Costs," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(3), pages 667-680, May.
    21. Blundell,Richard & Newey,Whitney K. & Persson,Torsten (ed.), 2006. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521871525, September.
    22. Jesper Bagger & Rasmus Lentz, 2008. "An Equilibrium Model of Wage Dispersion with Sorting," 2008 Meeting Papers 271, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    23. Blundell,Richard & Newey,Whitney K. & Persson,Torsten (ed.), 2006. "Advances in Economics and Econometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521692083, September.
    24. Chade, Hector, 2001. "Two-sided search and perfect segregation with fixed search costs," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 31-51, July.
    25. John M. Abowd (corresponding) & Francis Kramarz, 2004. "Are Good Workers Employed by Good Firms? A Simple Test of Positive Assortative Matching Models," Econometric Society 2004 North American Winter Meetings 385, Econometric Society.
    26. Sattinger, Michael, 1975. "Comparative Advantage and the Distributions of Earnings and Abilities," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 43(3), pages 455-468, May.
    27. Robert Shimer, 2005. "The Assignment of Workers to Jobs in an Economy with Coordination Frictions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(5), pages 996-1025, October.
    28. Becker, Gary S, 1973. "A Theory of Marriage: Part I," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(4), pages 813-846, July-Aug..
    29. repec:dau:papers:123456789/6486 is not listed on IDEAS
    30. Jan Eeckhout & Roberto Pinheiro, 2014. "Diverse Organizations And The Competition For Talent," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 55, pages 625-664, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cristian Bartolucci & Francesco Devicienti & Ignacio Monzón, 2018. "Identifying Sorting in Practice," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 408-438, October.
    2. Cristian Bartolucci & Francesco Devicienti, 2012. "Better Workers Move to Better Firms: A Simple Test to Identify Sorting," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 259, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    3. Jeremy Lise & Costas Meghir & Jean-Marc Robin, 2016. "Matching, Sorting and Wages," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 19, pages 63-87, January.
    4. Pieter A. Gautier & Coen N. Teulings, 2015. "Sorting And The Output Loss Due To Search Frictions," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 13(6), pages 1136-1166, December.
    5. Jan Eeckhout & Philipp Kircher, 2011. "The Research Agenda: Jan Eeckhout and Philipp Kircher on Sorting in Macroeconomic Models," EconomicDynamics Newsletter, Review of Economic Dynamics, vol. 13(1), November.
    6. Marcus Hagedorn & Tzuo Hann Law & Iourii Manovskii, 2017. "Identifying Equilibrium Models of Labor Market Sorting," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 85, pages 29-65, January.
    7. Kory Kantenga, 2016. "Sorting and Wage Inequality," 2016 Meeting Papers 660, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    8. Philipp Ehrl, 2019. "On The Use Of Firm Fixed Effects As A Productivity Measure For Analyzing Labor Market Matching," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 71(2), pages 195-208, April.
    9. Xiaoming Cai & Pieter Gautier & Ronald Wolthoff, 2021. "Search, Screening and Sorting," Working Papers tecipa-699, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    10. Benjamin Lochner & Bastian Schulz, 2016. "Labor Market Sorting in Germany," CESifo Working Paper Series 6066, CESifo.
    11. Benjamin Lochner & Bastian Schulz, 2024. "Firm Productivity, Wages, and Sorting," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(1), pages 85-119.
    12. Banfi, Stefano & Choi, Sekyu & Villena-Roldán, Benjamín, 2022. "Sorting on-line and on-time," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    13. Torres, Sónia & Portugal, Pedro & Addison, John T. & Guimarães, Paulo, 2018. "The sources of wage variation and the direction of assortative matching: Evidence from a three-way high-dimensional fixed effects regression model," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 47-60.
    14. Andrews, M.J. & Gill, L. & Schank, T. & Upward, R., 2012. "High wage workers match with high wage firms: Clear evidence of the effects of limited mobility bias," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(3), pages 824-827.
    15. Pieter A. Gautier & Coen N. Teulings, 2015. "Sorting And The Output Loss Due To Search Frictions," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 13(6), pages 1136-1166, December.
    16. Bombardini, Matilde & Orefice, Gianluca & Tito, Maria D., 2019. "Does exporting improve matching? Evidence from French employer-employee data," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 229-241.
    17. Borowczyk-Martins, Daniel & Bradley, Jake & Tarasonis, Linas, 2018. "Racial discrimination in the U.S. labor market: Employment and wage differentials by skill," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 45-66.
    18. Woodcock Simon D, 2010. "Heterogeneity and Learning in Labor Markets," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-69, September.
    19. Luca Paolo Merlino & Pierpaolo Parrotta & Dario Pozzoli, 2018. "Gender Differences in Sorting," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(4), pages 671-709, October.
    20. Paulo Guimarães & Pedro Portugal & Sónia Torres, 2013. "The sources of wage variation: a three-way high-dimensional fixed effects regression model," Working Papers w201309, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    sorting; assortative matching; complementarities; supermodularity; identification;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
    • J0 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J60 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:29708. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.