The sorting of workers across job tasks: an application to graduates and occupational choice

In this paper, workers are assumed to acquire task-specific skills prior to labor market entry. The theoretical framework on tasks assumes that workers sort across jobs based on comparative advantage in tasks. I derive three propositions of this conceptual framework which are verified empirically. I find that (i) major choice is an important determinant of what tasks workers do at their job; (ii) graduates majored in the same field self-select into occupations with similar task content and (iii) also the wages of these graduates is correlated strongest when they do similar tasks. (DIPF/Orig.