Becker Meets Ricardo: Multisector Matching with Social and Cognitive Skills

Robert J. McCann (), Xianwen Shi, Aloysius Siow () and Ronald Wolthoff
Additional contact information
Robert J. McCann: University of Toronto
Aloysius Siow: University of Toronto

No 6533, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper presents a tractable framework for studying frictionless matching in school, work, and marriage when individuals have heterogeneous social and cognitive skills. In the model, there are gains to specialization and team production, but specialization requires communication and coordination between team members, and individuals with more social skills communicate and coordinate at lower resource cost. The theory delivers full task specialization in the labor and education markets, but incomplete specialization in marriage. It also captures well-known matching patterns in each of these sectors, including the commonly observed many-to-one matches in firms and schools. Equilibrium is equivalent to the solution of a utilitarian social planner solving a linear programming problem.

Keywords: social welfare; social skill; cognitive skill; matching; sorting; education; labor; marriage; linear programming (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E24 J12 J24 J31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 48 pages
Date: 2012-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab, nep-ltv and nep-neu
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Forthcoming - published in: Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, 2015, 31 (4), 690-720

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Working Paper: Becker Meets Ricardo: Multisector Matching with Social and Cognitive Skills (2012)
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