I am an Assistant Professor of Economics at the Sciences Po Department of Economics and a Research Fellow at IZA and CESifo.

My research is in macro-labor economics with focus on search and matching. I study how differences across workers and firms, together with labor-market frictions, shape wages, worker mobility and productivity. I examine both how firms shape workers’ careers and how workers’ skills and knowledge contribute to firms’ productive capabilities. I combine search-and-matching models and structural estimation with linked administrative data, surveys and quasi-experimental evidence.

Research Overview

Wage determination, firm heterogeneity and career dynamics 

How do employers’ contracting practices, productivity and information about matches shape earnings and careers? My work studies wage posting and bargaining, wage changes and separations, cross-country differences in wage growth, and the measurement of firm wage effects. 

Papers: Wage Bargaining and Wage Posting Firms,  Separations on the Job Ladder, How Much Life-Cycle Wage Growth and Firm Productivity in Developed and Developing Economies, Should we Trust Estimates of Firm Effects and Worker Sorting? 

Skills, knowledge and productivity 

How do workers’ skills shape their employment opportunities and firms’ productive capabilities? My work examines the trade-off between specialization and access to suitable jobs, and how workers’ experience and mobility contribute to knowledge diffusion, product entry and productivity growth. 

Papers: The Two Faces of Worker Specialization, The Role of Workers in Knowledge Diffusion Across Firms, Lost Knowledge and New Products: Event-Study Evidence from Worker Deaths 

Outside options, access to jobs and constraints on adjustment 

How do amenities, wealth and location shape workers’ employment options? My work examines non-wage compensation, entry into self-employment and commuting opportunities, alongside research on how conditional inheritance-tax relief affects firms’ employment choices. 

Papers: Workplace Amenities and the Gender Pay Gap, Worker Wealth and the Option of Self-Employment, Preserving Jobs, Freezing Dynamics? Employment Effects of Conditional Inheritance Tax Relief, The Option Value of Distance: Wages and Commuting in a Spatial Labor Market 

Email:  kerstin.holzheu [at] sciencespo.fr