Title       : CAREER: Empirical Studies of Labor Market Intermediation
Type        : Award
NSF Org     : SES 
Latest
Amendment
Date        : April 19,  2004     
File        : a0239538

Award Number: 0239538
Award Instr.: Continuing grant                             
Prgm Manager: Kwabena Gyimah-Brempong                 
	      SES  DIVN OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC SCIENCES    
	      SBE  DIRECT FOR SOCIAL, BEHAV & ECONOMIC SCIE
Start Date  : June 1,  2003       
Expires     : May 31,  2008        (Estimated)
Expected
Total Amt.  : $420000             (Estimated)
Investigator: David H. Autor   (Principal Investigator current)
Sponsor     : NBER
	      1050 Massachusetts Avenue
	      Cambridge, MA  021385317    617/868-3900

NSF Program : 1320      ECONOMICS
Fld Applictn: 
Program Ref : 0000,1045,1187,OTHR,
Abstract    :

     This research studies the labor market consequences of two
     developments---the Internet and temporary employment agencies. The first
     project explores how the migration of job posting and candidate screening to
     the World Wide Web affects personnel outcomes  using firm level data of a large
     national bank that will migrate all of its branches and occupations in phases
     to exclusively online recruiting in 2002 and 2003. This part of the research
     analyzes several issues including how the move to online recruiting shapes the
     quality of worker-firm matches and whether improvements in firm-level match
     quality due to online recruiting yields aggregate changes in the quality of
     matches and hence operation of labor markets.

     The second part of the
     research studies hiring in temporary help sector. The temporary-help industry
     accounted for 10% of U.S. jobs created in the 1 990s. This is a major conduit
     by which less-skilled workers enter the labor market. This part of the research
     studies how the growth of temporary help intermediation affects labor market
     advancement of less-skilled workers.  The first phase of the project explores
     how the choice of job search modality for a given worker--- temporary help
     agency versus direct-hire employment---impacts labor market progression.

    
     The educational agenda of the proposal builds on these research components. The
     project develops a semester length graduate class under development that
     explores the consequences of technical change for the labor market. The course
     will be made available freely through MIT's OpenCourseWare Initiative (OCW),
     with partial support provided by OCW.  The project will organize a two-day
     conference titled, "The Growth of Labor Market Intermediaries: Electronic and
     Terrestrial" to disseminate scholarship on the role of labor market
     intermediaries in the U.S. and abroad.