Estimados/as Académicos/as,

Les extendemos la invitación al seminario que organiza el Departamento de Economía, en el que se presentará el trabajo titulado "Defining Labor Markets from Worker Flows".

Expone: Tomas Guanziroli, Profesor Asistente, UNAB.

Abstract: Labor market definitions are crucial for evaluating the effects of government policies, trade shocks, mergers and acquisitions, and other events on worker outcomes. Researchers have traditionally relied on ad hoc approximations — geographic boundaries, occupational codes, or industry classifications — without a theoretical framework justifying their choice. Consequently, concentration measures are mismeasured, merger policy reaches incorrect conclusions, and the effects of trade shocks are underestimated. This project addresses this gap by developing a theoretical model that rationalizes the use of worker flows to define labor markets. The model's main result is that wage markdowns and labor supply elasticities are functions of observed job transition rates. Crucially, the model shows that imposing any pre-defined market boundary excludes transitions occurring outside it, introducing systematic measurement error in estimated elasticities. In the empirical implementation, I use job transitions from the Brazilian matched employer-employee dataset. I show that labor markets often cross one-digit industry and occupation codes, and that a single firm may operate in up to 700 different labor markets.

El formato será presencial en la sala P-303.

Saludos cordiales,

Dirección de Investigación