College Alumni Networks and Mobility Across Local Labor Markets (with Heidi Artigue) 

Job Market Paper (draft)

Abstract:  We quantify the impact of alumni networks on the geographic mobility of job seekers for nearly 1,400 US colleges and universities. We use detailed employment and education information on LinkedIn users to isolate college-educated workers who faced an exogenous job separation in a mass layoff or firm closure. Using a nested logit model of location choice, we compare the migration decisions of job seekers who were displaced in the same city and who attended different but similar and geographically proximate universities. We find that a 1% increase in the number of co-alumni in the city of displacement increases a job seeker's odds of staying there by 0.4%. Conditional on moving, a 1% increase in a potential destination's number of co-alumni increases the odds of choosing that city over another by 0.9%. Co-alumni may both impact job search and provide local amenities. Using data on the presence or absence of co-alumni at new jobs, we conclude that the job search channel is particularly important.  Co-alumni from the same or neighboring graduating class have much larger impacts on location choice, indicating true network effects rather than idiosyncratic matches between alumni of certain colleges and jobs in certain cities. We also find strong impacts of having more local co-alumni who work in the same industry.

The Labor Market Impacts of 21st Century STEM Enrollment Expansions in US Higher Education

Abstract: I study the impact of widespread expansions in Computer Science and Engineering majors across US colleges and universities during the 21st century on individual labor market outcomes. Using rich data on individual educational and employment histories, I compare the outcomes of students who entered their undergraduate institution as a rapid expansion in the production of Computer Science or Engineering degrees took place to cohorts at the same institution who had completed major declarations just prior to the expansion. I find that relative to pre-expansion counterparts, students in first post-expansion cohorts were less likely to obtain an advanced degree and more likely to be employed in higher-paying, high-technology industries and smaller firms after graduation. I also find strong short-run effects on geographic mobility-- individuals in post-expansion cohorts were more likely to stay in the same location as their undergraduate institution immediately following graduation. However, five years after graduation, this reduced out-mobility largely disappears, suggesting that the rampant increase in the production of local STEM graduates did not directly lead to a larger local college-educated workforce beyond the short run. 

The Dynamics of High-Skill Worker Reallocation: Evidence from the Dot-Com Bubble

Abstract: I study the labor market impacts of a recession on high-skill workers by quantifying the medium and long-run effects of the 2001 Dot-Com bubble burst on employment and geographic mobility. I find that college-educated workers in the US who were exposed to larger local unemployment shocks were significantly less likely to be employed in the years following the recession, with eventual recovery in the long run. Workers who became re-employed ended up at smaller firms, but did not systematically switch into lower-paying industries. Impacts on mobility were particularly large. Individuals in more negatively affected local labor markets were not only more likely to move, but also relocated to lower-paying and cheaper places. Effects on employment and migration outcomes were primarily concentrated among workers in the tech sector.