Author
The research community at the Institute includes visiting scholars, consultants, economists, research analysts, and research assistants. These scholars bring varied backgrounds, interests, and expertise to research that deepens our understanding of economic opportunity and inclusion as well as policies that work to improve both.
Institute visitor Lukas Mann entered college in 2014 with memories of the Great Recession still fresh. Workers in his hometown of Konstanz, Germany, did not experience severe consequences from the global economic meltdown, but Mann saw that workers elsewhere clearly had—and still were. Why?
Mann originally planned to study two areas related to why the Great Recession occurred: macroeconomics and finance. But the methods, he said, “were too abstract, and not very realistic.” During a year-long visit to the Berkeley economics department, Mann was drawn to research that was more relevant to the consequences of the Great Recession. Many workers lost jobs and faced a rocky search for their next stable employment. Real-life job transitions can be much messier than economic models often presume.
So Mann has pursued research that develops realistic models of how workers search for jobs. One paper builds a model in which people slowly learn how in demand their skills are in the labor market. This learning process can explain many labor market patterns, such as the fact that people often misperceive their likelihood of finding a new job, which traditional theories do not account for. In Mann’s model, an individual who is still learning about the potential success of her current job search might accept a job that underpays her without knowing it.
Another paper adds a new level of realism to analyses of how artificial intelligence (AI) might affect workers by acknowledging that workers have a wide range of useful skills. A coder who is also an effective communicator might pivot to a position managing teams if AI automates her job, while her co-worker without those communication skills may not be so resilient. Mann’s work not only models these diverse skills but shows how to measure them.
Mann’s recent work turns back toward his original question about Konstanz: Why are some regions more productive than others? This is a hard question because a region’s earnings come from both the kinds of firms that operate there and the kinds of workers they employ. Mann develops methods to separate the interrelated location choices of firms and workers, finding that regional prosperity comes mainly from the location choices of companies rather than workers. The closer alignment between theory and reality creates insights about inequality and guidance about how to address it.
This article is featured in the Spring 2025 issue of For All, the magazine of the Opportunity & Inclusive Growth Institute
More scholar spotlights from this issue
Remembering Natalie Gubbay
Chi Hyun Kim—How history shapes our relationship to risk
Karen Kopecky—Unpacking dysfunction in long-term care insurance
