register
Paul Oyer

Stanford University Graduate School of Business, and NBER, USA, and IZA@LISER, Luxembourg

World of Labour role

Author

Current position

The Mary and Rankine Van Anda Entrepreneurial Professor and Professor of Economics; Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs; Senior Fellow, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research

Research interest

Labor economics, personnel economics, incentives, matching firms and workers

Website

https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/faculty/paul-oyer

Past positions

Faculty Co-Director, Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, Stanford University Graduate School of Business (2016–2019); Fred H. Merrill Professor of Economics, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, Stanford, CA (2011–2018); Dhirubhai Ambani Faculty Fellow in Entrepreneurship (2016–2017)

Qualifications

PhD in Economics, Princeton University, 1996

Selected publications

  • "Older workers and the gig economy." AEA Papers and Proceedings 109 (2019): 372–376 (with R. Diamond and C. Cook).

  • "The returns to elite degrees: The case of American lawyers." LR Review 72:2 (2019): 446–479 (with S. Schaefer).

  • "Personnel economics: Hiring and incentives." In: Handbook of Labor Economics, Volume 4B. Great Britain: North Holland, 2011; pp. 1769–1823 (with S. Schaefer).

  • "Why do some firms give stock options to all employees?: An empirical examination of alternative theories." Journal of Financial Economics 76:1 (2005): 99–133 (with S. Schaefer).

  • "Why do firms use incentives that have no incentive effects?" Journal of Finance 59:4 (2004): 1619–1650.

Article(s)

  • The gig economy

    Non-traditional employment is a great opportunity for many, but it won’t replace traditional employment

    Paul Oyer, January 2020
    The number of people holding non-traditional jobs (independent contractors, temporary workers, “gig” workers) has grown steadily as technology increasingly enables short-term labor contracting and fixed employment costs continue to rise. For many firms that need less than a full-time person for short-term work and for many workers who value flexibility this has created a great deal of surplus. During slack economic periods, non-traditional work also serves as an alternative safety net. Non-traditional jobs will continue to become more common, though policy changes could slow or accelerate the trend.
    Read moreRead less