Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP17630
Authors: Jan C. van Ours; Thomas Peeters
Abstract: We investigate whether national borders within Europe hinder the assortative matching of workers to firms in a high skilled labor market. We characterize worker productivity as the ability to contribute to physical output and define firm productivity as the capacity to transform physical output into revenues. We rank workers and firms according to their individual productivity estimates and study the ensuing rank correlation to gauge the degree of assortative matching within and across countries. We find strong evidence for positive assortative matching at the national level, and even more so at the international level. This suggests national borders do not prevent workers and firm from pursuing profitable complementarities in production.
Keywords: assortative matching; international worker mobility; football managers
JEL Codes: M51; J63; J24; Z22
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| worker productivity (J29) | firm productivity (D22) |
| firm productivity (D22) | worker productivity (J29) |
| national borders (F55) | assortative matching (C78) |
| assortative matching (C78) | match surplus (H62) |
| match surplus (H62) | frictions (D74) |