Working Paper: NBER ID: w23328
Authors: David Deming; Lisa B. Kahn
Abstract: We study variation in skill demands for professionals across firms and labor markets. We categorize a wide range of keywords found in job ads into ten general skills. There is substantial variation in these skill requirements, even within narrowly defined occupations. Focusing particularly on cognitive and social skills, we find positive correlations between each skill and external measures of pay and firm performance. We also find evidence of a cognitive social-skill complementarity for both outcomes. As a whole, the job skills have explanatory power in pay and firm performance regressions, beyond what is available in widely-used labor market data.
Keywords: skill demands; labor markets; job postings; cognitive skills; social skills
JEL Codes: F1; F16
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| cognitive skills (G53) | wages (J31) |
| social skills (Z13) | wages (J31) |
| cognitive skills + social skills (Z13) | wages (J31) |
| cognitive skills + social skills (Z13) | firm performance (L25) |
| firm performance (L25) | revenue per worker (J31) |
| firm performance (L25) | likelihood of being publicly traded (G24) |