Working Papers

• The Worker and Firm Origins of Life-Cycle Wage Inequality (Submitted) with Xincheng Qiu and Runling Wu June 2026·Working Paper
  Abstract Paper Cite

  Wage inequality widens substantially over the life cycle. We decompose this widening into worker and firm heterogeneity in returns to experience and sorting. We generalize the AKM model to allow wage growth to differ across workers and firms and develop a two-way clustering algorithm for estimation. Using Italian matched employer-employee data, we document substantial heterogeneity in both worker and firm growth effects. Worker growth accounts for two-thirds of the rise in life-cycle wage inequality, while firm growth accounts for the remaining third. Workers with more accumulated skills increasingly sort into high-paying firms over the life cycle.

• The Search Costs of Inflation in the Labor Market (Submitted) with Laura Pilossoph and Jane Ryngaert May 2026·Working Paper
  Abstract Paper Cite

  This paper studies the effect of unanticipated inflation in the labor market. When wages are contracted in nominal terms, inflation reduces real wages, leading workers to intensify on-the-job search to obtain wage-adjusting outside offers. Both the search effort and the resulting job mobility are costly, yet that same mobility raises output by moving workers toward more productive matches. To quantify these costs and benefits, we extend the canonical job ladder of Postel-Vinay and Robin (2002) to a nominal environment with privately chosen search effort, and calibrate it to standard moments from the pre-pandemic US labor market.

• Intergenerational Mobility in Welfare: Wages and Amenities (stay tuned) with Natalia Khorunzhina and Runling Wu December 2025·Working Paper
  Abstract Paper Cite

  Measures of intergenerational mobility primarily focus on earnings and often overlook substantial heterogeneity in job amenities. We propose a novel measure of intergenerational welfare mobility, “value-value” slope, including both pecuniary and non-pecuniary value of a job. We apply a revealed preference approach to construct common rankings of jobs based on worker flows. Using Danish administrative data, we document that there is 31% more intergenerational mobility than earnings-based mobility measures alone would suggest: the value-value slope is 0.105 and the wage-premia slope is 0.151.

• Text Sentiment about Monetary Policy with Hie Joo Ahn, Thomas R. Cook, Taeyoung Doh, and Elias Kastriti November 2025·Working Paper
  Abstract Paper Cite

  This paper uses text data from FOMC meeting transcripts to estimate the reference levels of full employment, inflation, and financial conditions perceived by voting members, and to uncover time variation in the Taylor rule parameters. We construct topic dictionaries on economic slack, inflation, and financial markets, and infer reference levels from members’ sentiment using a state-space model.

Teaching

Teaching Assistant, Department of Economics, Duke University:

• Econ 201 — Intermediate Microeconomics, Fall 2024
• Econ 101 — Principles of Economics, Spring 2023
• Econ 104 — Statistical Foundations of Econometrics, Fall 2022

“The Micro and Macro Perspective of the Labor Market” Virtual Reading Group/Workshop

Runling Wu and I co-organize the “Micro and Macro Perspective of the Labor Market” Virtual Reading Group/Workshop at Duke since 2023. An archive can be found here.

The format alternates between a reading group where a participant presents a published paper and a workshop where an invited speaker presents a working paper.

Please contact labor.public@gmail.com if you are interested in participating. Meetings are on Saturdays at 11 AM (ET) via Zoom.

Contact

Department of Economics, Duke University · Durham, NC
Email: jesse.wedewer@duke.edu