Dr. Jamin D. Speer to be Published in Journal of Human Resources

For release:  August 25, 2015

Dr. Jamin D. Speer, assistant professor of Economics, recently had a paper accepted to be published in the Journal of Human Resources. The paper is entitled "Pre-Market Skills, Occupational Choice, and Career Progression."

The paper used a combination of data sources to study the effects of workers' pre-market skills in various fields on their initial occupation choices and career progression patterns, with a particular focus on understanding gender gaps in occupation. The paper showed that pre-market skills, as measured by test scores and personality traits, accounted for a significant portion of occupational gender gaps, including 71 percent of the gender gap in science and engineering occupations. It also found that career trajectories were remarkably similar across workers, meaning that initial differences in occupation persist over time and that pre-market skills have long-lasting impacts on careers.