MACRO Seminar: Sydnee Caldwall, University of California, Berkeley

Speaker

Sydnee Caldwall, University of California, Berkeley

Biography

Sydnee Caldwell is an assistant professor in the Economic Analysis and Policy Group at the Haas School of Business and an assistant professor in the Department of Economics. Caldwell’s research focuses on topics in labor and personnel economics.

Caldwell received a PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2019 and a BA in applied mathematics and economics from UC Berkeley in 2012. She is the 2019 winner of the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research dissertation prize and was chosen as a participant in the 2019 Review of Economic Studies European Tour. Before joining UC Berkeley she was a post-doctoral researcher at Microsoft Research New England.

Title

"Why Workers Stay: Pay, Beliefs, and Attachment*"

Abstract

Workers often remain with their employer despite higher outside pay. This may reflect information frictions or preferences. We surveyed full-time German workers and linked responses to Social Security records. Workers believe pay varies across firms and direct their search toward higher-paying employers. Expected firm-specific pay premia are correlated with administrative pay measures and workers’ amenity valuations. Yet most workers would reject take-it-or-leave-it raises at named destination firms. Separation elasticities are 2-4 when pay levels and growth are known. Attachment varies across firms in ways unexplained by ex ante amenity valuations. Limited mobility is better explained by preferences than information frictions.