Ni Wang

WORKING PAPERS

Job Attachment and Life Cycle Gender Wage Differences

Employment interruptions are more common among women than men, with substantial individual-level heterogeneity. Employers value job attachment but job attachment is not directly observed. I show that the information problem of female job attachment is detrimental to female labor market outcomes. I propose a model where there is information asymmetry about female job attachment but not about male job attachment in a frictional labor market. To screen female job attachment, employers offer separating wage contracts that distort the wage profiles of high-attachment women. The distortions suppress female job-to-job mobility, resulting in worse labor market outcomes than comparable men. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, I document evidence on the gender differences in mobility patterns and wage growth that support the assumptions and the predictions of the model. I then calibrate the model and quantify the contributing factors to the gender wage gap. The calibrated model captures the gender differences in the data. The gender difference in job-to-job mobility explains a majority of the life cycle gender wage gap.

Compensation Structure and Adverse Selection in Alternative Work Arrangements

I study alternative work arrangements in an environment with moral hazard and adverse selection. Workers are hired on a per-task basis, whose effort and marginal product may not be observed. The employer chooses between offering a bonus contract and selling the task. Bonus contracts provide workers with insurance against output risks but subject them to organizational uncertainty. Allowing workers to buy out the task induces higher worker effort but provides no risk sharing. I characterize the tradeoff between the two arrangements. Adverse selection limits the use of the latter arrangement on low marginal product workers, and hence also limits the employer’s ability to induce their effort.