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Recognition for Group Work: Gender Differences in Academia

American Economic Review 2017 107(5), 141-145
How is credit for group work allocated when individual contributions are not observed? I use data on academics' publication records to test whether demographic traits like gender influence how credit is allocated under such uncertainty. While solo-authored papers send a clear signal about ability, coauthored papers are noisy, providing no specific information about each contributor's skills. I find that men are tenured at roughly the same rate regardless of coauthoring choices. Women, however, are less likely to receive tenure the more they coauthor. The result is much less pronounced among women who coauthor with other women.

Flexible Wages, Bargaining, and the Gender Gap

Quarterly Journal of Economics 2021 137(1), 215-266
Does flexible pay increase the gender wage gap? To answer this question, we analyze the wages of public school teachers in Wisconsin, where a 2011 reform allowed school districts to set teachers’ pay more flexibly and engage in individual negotiations. Using quasi-exogenous variation in the timing of the introduction of flexible pay, driven by the expiration of preexisting collective-bargaining agreements, we show that flexible pay lowered the salaries of women compared with men with the same credentials. This gap is larger for younger teachers and smaller for teachers working under a female principal or superintendent. Survey evidence suggests that the gap is partly driven by women engaging less frequently in negotiations over pay, especially when the counterpart is a man. The gap is unlikely to be driven by observable gender differences in job mobility or teacher ability, although the threat of moving and a high demand for male teachers could exacerbate it. Our results suggest that pay discretion and wage bargaining are important determinants of the gender wage gap and that institutions, such as unions, might help narrow this gap.

Across-Country Wage Compression in Multinationals

American Economic Review 2026 116(1), 52-87 open access
Many employers link wages at establishments outside of the home region to the level at headquarters. We show this using new data on 1,200 multinationals’ establishments across the world and linked employee-level data on their establishments in Brazil. Headquarters wage changes arising from minimum wage and exchange rate shocks are partially transmitted to workers employed in the same position abroad. Wage change transmission appears to be direct and results from firm-wide wage-setting procedures rather than associated technology or employment changes. “Anchored” wage setting is somewhat associated with particular characteristics of the job × employer × headquarters-establishment country-pair.

Gender Differences in Recognition for Group Work

Journal of Political Economy 2021 129(1), 101-147 open access
We study whether gender influences credit attribution for group work using observational data and two experiments. We use data from academic economists to test whether coauthorship matters differently for tenure for men and women. We find that, conditional on quality and other observables, men are tenured similarly regardless of whether they coauthor or solo author. Women, however, are less likely to receive tenure the more they coauthor. We then conduct two experiments that demonstrate that biases in credit attribution in settings without confounds exist. Taken together, our results are best explained by gender and stereotypes influencing credit attribution for group work.