Path Dependence in the Labor Market: The Long-run Effects of Early Career Occupational Experience

The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or the official positions of the U.S. Department of the Treasury or of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Any taxpayer data used in this research was kept in a secured Treasury or IRS data repository, and all results have been reviewed to ensure that no confidential information is disclosed. Further, all views and findings expressed in this manuscript are those of the authors and do not represent the views or official positions of the United States Military Academy, Department of Defense, or the United States Army. This paper has also not been funded or endorsed by ISO New England. Research reported in this publication was supported by the Population Studies and Training Center at Brown University through the generosity of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P2C HD041020) and the Russell Sage Foundation. We thank seminar participants at the Federal Reserve Board, Northeastern University, Opportunity Insights, Columbia University Teachers College, Clark University, the Northeast Econ of Ed Workshop, the San Francisco Federal Reserve Micro/Macro Labor Workshop, Northwestern University, University of Chicago, Purdue University, the Cowles Summer Workshop, the SOLE annual meeting, Boston University, the Atlanta Federal Reserve Employment Conference, and the NBER Summer Institute Labor Studies session for insightful comments and feedback. All errors remain ours. Jesse Bruhn: Department of Economics, Brown University. Jacob Fabian, Market Development, ISO New England. Luke Gallagher: Department of Social Sciences, West Point. Matthew Gudgeon: Department of Economics, Tufts University. Adam Isen: Department of Economics, Johns Hopkins University. Aaron Phipps. Department of Social Sciences, West Point.