Does Turnover Inhibit Specialization? Evidence from a Skill Survey in Peru

We design, pilot, and field a new survey of job skills in Peru to investigate human capital differences between poor and rich countries. Peruvian jobs have markedly more uniform skill profiles than jobs in the United States. On the other hand, matching frictions are no more severe than in the United States, and recruiting technology is largely equivalent as well. We propose a stylized model in the O-ring tradition, in which a labor demand preference for unspecialized workers can endogenously arise when there is uncertainty about labor availability. (JEL J22, J23, J24, J41, J46, O15)