Outside Options in the Labour Market
提出了一种估计工人外部就业机会的方法，通过构建“外部选择指数”量化外部选择对收入的影响，并利用德国微观数据发现外部选择差异解释了20%的性别收入差距。
Abstract This paper develops a method to estimate workers’ outside employment opportunities. We outline a matching model with two-sided heterogeneity, from which we derive a sufficient statistic, the “outside options index” (OOI), for the effect of outside options on earnings, holding worker productivity constant. The OOI uses the cross-sectional concentration of similar workers across job types to quantify workers’ outside options as a function of workers’ commuting costs, preferences, and skills. Using German micro-data, we find that differences in options explain 20% of the gender earnings gap, and that gender gaps in options are mostly due to differences in the implicit costs of commuting and moving.