Economics · Carnegie Mellon University

Rebecca Lessem

I am an Associate Professor of Economics (without tenure) at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University. My research develops and estimates structural models of the labor market, with applications in personnel economics, family economics, and migration. I teach in Tepper's undergraduate business and PhD programs.

Download CV rlessem@andrew.cmu.edu

Research

Working papers

Matching Job Applicants to Vacancies: An Empirical Model of Multi-Stage Hiring With Robert Miller · Under review
The Effects of Family Structure on Children's Outcomes With Carl Sanders · Under review
The Consumer-Product Characteristic Project With Laurence Ales, Chris Telmer, and Ariel Zetlin-Jones · Under review

Published papers

Do House Prices Affect Campaign Contributions? With Sarah Niebler and Carly Urban · Economics & Politics, 2023, 35(2): 629–660
How Do U.S. Visa Policies Affect Unauthorized Immigration? With Brian Kovak · Journal of Monetary Economics (Carnegie-Rochester-NYU), 2020, 113: 92–108
Immigrant Wage Growth in the United States: The Role of Occupational Upgrading With Carl Sanders · International Economic Review, 2020, 61(2): 941–972
Immigrant Wages and Recessions: Evidence from Undocumented Mexicans With Kayuna Nakajima · European Economic Review, 2019, 114: 92–115
Mexico-U.S. Immigration: Effects of Wages and Border Enforcement Review of Economic Studies, 2018, 85(4): 2353–2388
Local Economic Growth from Primary Election Spending With Carly Urban · Economic Journal, 2016, 126(597): 2147–2172
The Political Orientation of Newspaper Endorsements in U.S. Elections, 1940–2002 With Stephen Ansolabehere and James Snyder · Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 2006, 1(4): 393–404

Work in progress

Creative Destruction Within Firms With Paul Grieco and Matthias Kehrig
Competitive Job Search: Evidence from Inside the Firm With Robert Miller
Whose Career Comes First? Joint Migration and Human Capital Investment Decisions With Carl Sanders