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  4. March 2025
  5. Does Turnover Inhibit Specialization? Evidence from a Skill Survey in Peru

American Economic Review: Insights

ISSN 2640-205X (Print) | ISSN 2640-2068 (Online)

Does Turnover Inhibit Specialization? Evidence from a Skill Survey in Peru

  • Andrea Atencio-De-Leon
  • Munseob Lee
  • Claudia Macaluso
American Economic Review: Insights
vol. 7, no. 1, March 2025
(pp. 56–70)
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Abstract

We design, pilot, and field a new survey of job skills in Peru to investigate human capital differences between poor and rich countries. Peruvian jobs have markedly more uniform skill profiles than jobs in the United States. On the other hand, matching frictions are no more severe than in the United States, and recruiting technology is largely equivalent as well. We propose a stylized model in the O-ring tradition, in which a labor demand preference for unspecialized workers can endogenously arise when there is uncertainty about labor availability.

Citation

Atencio-De-Leon, Andrea, Munseob Lee, and Claudia Macaluso. 2025. "Does Turnover Inhibit Specialization? Evidence from a Skill Survey in Peru." American Economic Review: Insights 7 (1): 56–70. DOI: 10.1257/aeri.20230657

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • J22 Time Allocation and Labor Supply
  • J23 Labor Demand
  • J24 Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
  • J41 Labor Contracts
  • J46 Informal Labor Markets
  • O15 Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration