Senior Research Fellow - Occupational Licensing & Labor Mobility

Workforce Intelligence Lab (WIL) is building a research network focused on workforce policy, labor-market measurement, worker mobility, and causal policy evaluation.

We are seeking a Senior Research Fellow — Occupational Licensing & Labor Mobility to support current and future research examining how occupational licensing, reciprocity, universal recognition, and related state regulatory reforms affect employment, wages, labor supply, interstate mobility, and employer hiring pressure.

This opportunity is particularly relevant to researchers with experience in labor economics, occupational regulation, interstate worker mobility, professional licensing, or state policy evaluation.

Current Research Opportunity

WIL is developing a quasi-experimental study examining whether state universal occupational licensing recognition policies change labor-market outcomes for licensed workers and occupations.

Potential research responsibilities may include:

• refining the research question and causal estimand;
• evaluating treatment and comparison-group construction;
• Difference-in-Differences, staggered DiD, event-study, or related quasi-experimental analysis;
• analyzing CPS, ACS/PUMS, OEWS, QWI/LEHD, or related labor-market datasets;
• developing occupation and licensing-policy crosswalks;
• evaluating interstate mobility, employment, wages, and labor