Senior Research Fellow – Occupational Licensing, Labor Mobility

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in United States.

📋 Description

• Assist in researching the impacts of occupational licensing, reciprocity, universal recognition, and associated state regulatory reforms on employment, wages, labor supply, interstate mobility, and hiring pressures faced by employers.

• Refine research inquiries and causal estimands.

• Assess the construction of treatment and comparison groups.

• Perform Difference-in-Differences, staggered DiD, event-study, or other related quasi-experimental analyses.

• Analyze datasets such as CPS, ACS/PUMS, OEWS, QWI/LEHD, and other relevant labor-market data.

• Create occupation and licensing-policy crosswalks.

• Evaluate outcomes related to interstate mobility, employment, wages, and the labor force.

• Review methodologies and identify potential threats to accurate identification.

• Contribute to grant proposals and pre-analysis plans.

• Conduct or oversee empirical analysis if a project secures funding.

• Assist in the development of academic manuscripts, research reports, and policy publications.

⛳️ Requirements

• Ph.D. or advanced doctoral training in economics, public policy, sociology, statistics, political science, or a similar quantitative field (preferred).

• Proven experience in applied research.

• Familiarity with large longitudinal, administrative, or survey datasets.

• Proficient in R, Stata, Python, SQL, or similar research tools.

• Strong grasp of causal identification and policy evaluation.

• Excellent written communication skills and methodological judgment.

• Relevant experience in labor economics, occupational regulation, interstate worker mobility, professional licensing, or state policy evaluation.

• Knowledge of Difference-in-Differences, staggered treatment designs, modern event-study techniques, synthetic control, regression discontinuity, instrumental variables, panel-data methods, or causal inference.

• Experience with CPS, ACS/PUMS, OEWS, QWI/LEHD, Census microdata, BLS datasets, state licensing records, or occupational crosswalks is particularly pertinent.

🏝️ Benefits

• Project-based research opportunity; not a guaranteed salaried position.

• Possible consideration for larger funded research projects, dependent on external grant or sponsored-project funding.

• Potential roles include Senior Research Fellow, Methods Lead, Co-Investigator, Principal Investigator / Co-Principal Investigator, Applied Labor Economist, and Research Consultant.

• Opportunity to be considered for future WIL research, grants, publications, and sponsored-project opportunities that align with expertise.

• Academic affiliation is welcomed but not mandatory.