Inter-industry labor flows

Frank Neffke, Anne Otto and Antje Weyh

Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2017, vol. 142, issue C, 275-292

Abstract: Using German social security data, we study inter-industry labor mobility to assess how industry-specific human capital is and to determine which industries have similar human capital requirements. We find that inter-industry labor flows are highly concentrated in just a handful of industry pairs. Consequently, labor flows connect industries in a sparse network. We interpret this network as an expression of industries similarities in human capital requirements, or skill relatedness. This skill-relatedness network is stable over time, similar for different types of workers and independent of whether workers switch jobs locally or over larger distances. Moreover, in an application to regional diversification and local industry growth, skill relatedness proves to be more predictive than colocation or value chain relations. To facilitate future research, we make detailed inter-industry relatedness matrices online available.

Keywords: Labor mobility; Relatedness; Skills; Regional growth; Germany; Human capital specificity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (69)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Inter-industry Labor Flows (2016)
Working Paper: Inter-industry labor flows (2016)
Working Paper: Inter-industry Labor Flows (2016)
Working Paper: Inter-industry labor flows (2016)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:142:y:2017:i:c:p:275-292

DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2017.07.003

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