Cities and assortative matching dynamics over worker careers

Stefan Leknes (), Hildegunn Stokke and Eric Myran Wee ()
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Stefan Leknes: Statistics Norway
Eric Myran Wee: Department of Economics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Working Paper Series from Department of Economics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Abstract: Superior employment matching is considered a key source of agglomeration economies, yet little is known about how urban scale affects matching over workers’ careers. Using full-count Norwegian registry data from 1995-2019, we estimate two-way worker and plant fixed effects to construct a worker-level measure of assortative matching. We find that job matches are more assortative in cities and that city workers progress more rapidly toward increasingly better matches over the career. These gains are concentrated among high-ability workers, while low-ability workers become increasingly mismatched in cities. For migrants, assortative matching initially declines following relocation but improves with subsequent job transitions.

Keywords: Assortative matching; agglomeration economies; career progression; wage decomposition; skills; mobility; AKM-estimation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 J31 J61 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 43 pages
Date: 2026-02-16
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nst:samfok:20626

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