Abstract. This paper studies hiring and wage setting in new jobs. Using Swedish matched employer-employee data covering 1.7 million new hires, I show that entrants into occupations new to the firm have more labor market experience and are more likely to be hired from other employers. Conditional on entrant characteristics, new jobs have a 3 percent entry-wage premium and exhibit lower turnover than old jobs. The premium declines as firms accumulate occupation-specific employment experience, consistent with hiring uncertainty that resolves as the firm gains experience in the occupation. The new job wage premium is a previously undocumented source of wage dispersion among similar workers.

Presentations (including scheduled): UCLS Spring, Annual, and PhD Meetings, AMSE Conference in Applied Econometrics (Marseille 2024), 15th Nordic Workshop on Register Data and Economic Modelling (Aarhus 2024), Barcelona Labor Economics Meeting (AEET 2024), EALE (Bergen 2024), LSE Labour Workshop, SUDSWEC (Stockholm University 2024), 8th Swedish Conference in Economics (Lund), Rockwool Foundation Berlin, Stockholm University, TED University, IFAU, 16th CRC Retreat (Berlin), Wages, Employment, and Inequality Workshop (2025, Helsinki), CReAM-RFBerlin Workshop (2025), the Berlin School of Economics, and EEA-ESEM 2026.

Abstract:  We show that the wages of men and women are differentially affected by outside options, and that these differential responses contribute to the gender pay gap. We develop a simple model of on-the-job search that integrates two crucial gender differences: job preferences and the propensity to renegotiate wages in response to external offers. Both factors contribute to lower wage responsiveness for women when they receive outside offers, and a negative female-male pay gap. However, women's job mobility responses vary depending on the underlying mechanism. To empirically test our model's predictions, we analyze wage and job mobility responses of men and women to external job opportunities, mediated through family networks. Using Swedish register data, we find that improved outside options are associated with higher within-job wage growth for men but not for women. Importantly, we can rule out that these gendered responses arise from differences in the quality of external offers as these are balanced across genders by design. Additionally, men's and women's job mobility responses are very similar. In the light of the model, we attribute these findings to differences in negotiation behavior between men and women. Policies encouraging women to bargain in response to outside options may thus be a powerful tool for reducing the remaining within-job gender gap in pay.

Presentations: University of Vienna, Tinbergen Institute (Amsterdam), Warwick University, IIES (Stockholm), IFN (Stockholm), IFAU (Uppsala), ESPE (Rotterdam), FLAME (Halle), Nordic Summer Institute in Labor Economics (Uppsala), 2025 NBER Summer Institute, and UCLS

Abstract.  We quantify the role of gender-specific firm wage premiums in explaining the private-sector gender gap in hourly wages using a harmonized research design across 11 matched employer-employee datasets --- ten European countries and Washington State, USA. These premiums contribute to the gender wage gap through two channels: women's concentration in lower-paying firms (sorting) and women receiving lower premiums than men within the same firm (pay-setting). We find that firm wage premiums account for 10 to 30 percent of the gender wage gap. While both mechanisms matter, sorting is the predominant driver of the firm contribution to the gender wage gap in most countries. We document three patterns that are broadly consistent across countries:  (1) women's sorting into lower-paying firms increases with age; (2) women are more concentrated in low-paying firms with a high share of part-time workers; and (3) women receive about 90 percent of the rents that men receive from firm surplus gains.

Presentation: NBER SI, IZA/OECD workshop, U Chicago (Harris), McGill, NHH, OECD,  ESPE, LEED 2024, Grid conference on Global Trends in Inequality, EALE, Cornell University, The Ohio State University, The Italian Association of Labour Economists, IAB, Uppsala Uni., Stockholm University (SOFI),  WZB/Berlin School of Economics, ASSA (planned)

Abstract. Soon..

Abstract: This paper contributes to a better understanding of the role of bargaining and discrimination in the gender wage gap in France and four other European countries using comprehensive linked employer-employee data. The role of bargaining and discrimination is analysed by focusing on systematic differences in wage-setting practices between men and women in the same firm through the estimation of gender-specific firm wage premia. The paper provides three key insights. First, bargaining and discrimination account for only a small part of the gender wage gap in France. Second, the component of the gender wage gap that can be attributed to bargaining and discrimination is higher in high-wage firms in all countries considered. Third, cross-country differences in the importance of bargaining and discrimination in the gender wage gap reflect both systematic differences in wage-setting practices within firms and imperfections in the product market that generate persistent rents.