Regula Geel () (Institute for Strategy and Business Economics, University of Zurich) Uschi Backes-Gellner () (Institute for Strategy and Business Economics, University of Zurich)
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Mobility and flexibility is increasingly demanded as structural change challenges estab-lished educational systems and traditional occupational demarcations. We use Lazear’s skill-weights approach (2003) first to operationalize the degree of specificity of skill com-binations in an innovative manner and second to derive hypotheses about the effects of occupation-specific skill combinations. In our empirical section, we find that the more specific an occupation, the smaller is the probability of an occupational change, as ex-pected. Furthermore, we are able to identify different clusters of occupations that are char-acterized by similar skill combinations within a given cluster and different skill combina-tions between clusters. We find that employees in very specific occupations have a com-paratively higher probability of changing their occupation within than between skill clus-ters. Moreover, occupational mobility within a skill cluster is accompanied by wage gains, while mobility between skill clusters results in wage losses. Not surprisingly, the more specific the former occupation is, either the higher is the resulting wage loss or the smaller is the resulting wage gain depending on whether the move is between or within skill clus-ters, respectively. Therefore, the acquired skill combination rather than the occupation per se crucially determines the mobility of an employee.
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Find related papers by JEL classification: J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion M53 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting - - Personnel Economics - - - Training
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Gueorgui Kambourov & Iourii Manovskii, 2009.
"Occupational Specificity Of Human Capital,"
International Economic Review,
Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 50(1), pages 63-115, 02.
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Other versions:
Ingram, Beth F. & Neumann, George R., 2006.
"The returns to skill,"
Labour Economics,
Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 35-59, February.
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