
Undergraduate Honors Theses
Thesis Defended
Spring 2018
Document Type
Thesis
Type of Thesis
Departmental Honors
Department
Economics
First Advisor
Dr. Richard Mansfield
Second Advisor
Dr. Terra McKinnish
Third Advisor
Dr. Fred Anderson
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Abstract
This study analyzes the effect of past occupation on employment outcomes for displaced workers. The data used is a pooled cross sectional sample of displaced workers from 1996 to 2016, and employment outcomes are measured in three ways: the length of an individual’s unemployment spell, the change in weekly earnings between their lost and current job, and the total lost income caused by displacement over a five-year period. Considerable differences are found among occupations for all three outcome measures. To investigate the causes of this heterogeneity, I analyze the impact of human capital and aggregate occupation demand on occupation effects. Variation in the value of human capital in recovering from job loss can explain much of the occupational differences in weekly income change and five-year lost income. Differences in aggregate occupation demand, conversely, are found to mainly explain occupational heterogeneity in unemployment length.
Recommended Citation
Bruell, Leo, "The Effect of Occupation on Employment Outcomes for Displaced Workers" (2018). Undergraduate Honors Theses. 1722.
https://scholar.colorado.edu/honr_theses/1722