Research — Paul Jackson

Uncertainty, Learning, and the Unemployment-Education Gap over the Life Cycle, with Jie Duan
- We propose that college graduates enter the labor market with less uncertainty regarding which career they are most productive in, and study how this characteristic contributes to the unemployment-education gap. We document several novel facts to support our hypothesis. Notably, college graduates predict their occupation more accurately than those without a college degree. We then develop and calibrate a life cycle search model featuring differences in uncertainty by education and learning about one's best career fit. Our quantitative analysis suggests large disparities in uncertainty by education, and that such differences can explain a sizeable portion of the unemployment-education gap.
Inflation, Skill Loss During Unemployment, and TFP in the Long Run, with Bessy Liao
- We develop a search model with frictional goods and labor markets to study the long run relationship between inflation, unemployment, and TFP when workers lose skills during unemployment. As inflation increases, fewer jobs are created, workers experience longer unemployment durations and their skills deteriorate, causing TFP to decline. Our calibrated results show that transitioning from the Friedman rule to 10% annual inflation lowers TFP by 4.3%. A stochastic version of the model demonstrates that prolonged periods of inflation, such as the 1970s in the US, can have lasting negative effects on productivity.

Mid-Worklife Crisis (with Nicolas Jacquet, Serene Tan, and Ronald Wolthoff)
Lifelong Gains from a Strong Start: Early Career Fit, Learning, and the College Wage Premium (with Jie Duan)
Re-evaluating Declining Job-to-Job Transitions: The Role of Experience and Human Capital (with Ismail Baydur)

The Impact of the Great Recession on Educational Attainment: Evidence from Florida
- This paper estimates the effect of labor demand shocks caused by the Great Recession on high school dropout, high school graduation, postsecondary enrollment, and postsecondary completion rates. The analysis leverages a rich administrative data set from Florida that contains thorough information on student's background and human capital investments. I find little evidence to suggest that the Great Recession affected educational attainment or that these effects vary across characteristics of students and colleges. I interpret these findings within the context of Florida's educational institutions that provide students opportunities to continue progressing towards a college degree while adjusting to economic shocks.

“Job Search, Job Findings, and the Role of Unemployment Insurance History” by S. Rujiwattanapong. Search and Matching in Asia Pacific Workshop, Singapore, 2024. [Slides]