The Labor Dynamics Institute goals are trifold. We study and improve labor market outcomes of workers; more generally we improve access to and understanding of data sources for the study of the labor market; and improve the transparency and accessibility of economics research to enhance its credibility.
LDI designs many of its projects to include Cornell graduate and undergraduate students. We hire a number of times a year. Interested?
Future of Work: Research focuses
We investigate effective labor market outcomes for workers. Current projects feature creating, maintaining, and enhancing job search tools with the goal of observing outcomes of such interventions for workers. We are building collaborations with Computer and Data Scientists at both faculty and student level to enhance research into this field. We have examined existing online platforms to understand features and how employers use them. We also advocate advancing changes in employer records at the federal level to enable measurement of outcomes not previously possible..
We seek to improve access to data at multiple levels. Our leadership and affiliates serve on National Academies panels and committees at government agencies in the United States and Canada that are tasked with enabling easier and enhanced access to comprehensive confidential administrative data for research. Our affiliate Erica Groshen is a leading advocate for a U.S. "21st Century National Data Infrastructure." Better data access contributes to our other goals. It enables more comprehensive scrutiny of academic research when data cannot be published, supporting integrity even where transparency is limited.
We house leading practice and research to make economics more transparent and reproducible. LDI's Reproducibility Lab conducts reproducibility verifications for American Economic Association's Data Editor. We coordinate and share expertise with colleagues in economics, sociology, political science, program evaluation, demography, and computer science at Cornell and elsewhere to improve infrastructure, methods, and standards. Our projects also pursue development of new standards and tools to enhance transparency.