Sujan Bandyopadhyay
Welcome to my website!
I am an Economics PhD candidate at Arizona State University, currently on the job market for 2024-2025.
Research Interests: My interests are macroeconomics, aggregate labor markets, and economic development.
Job Market Paper: "A Theory of Domestic Outsourcing: Search and Sorting in Skilled Services."
Abstract: This paper develops a novel theory of domestic outsourcing grounded in search frictions and worker-firm heterogeneity. The theory is motivated by new empirical evidence on the outsourcing of skilled services in the United States, notably its rising employment share, outsourcing wage premium, and the discernible sorting of higher-ability workers into outsourcing. In the model, workers, output-producing firms, and labor intermediaries participate in a single frictional labor market. These intermediaries then play the role of a competitive matching market for worker abilities and firm characteristics. A quantitative formulation of the model unveils that, by mitigating the adverse effects of search frictions, the increase in outsourcing share of employment since the 1980s has generated aggregate output gains of 4 percent and worker welfare gains of 2 percent. A counterfactual experiment reveals the potential for policy intervention: a targeted subsidy to the outsourcing sector, funded by modest output taxes on the production sector, can improve aggregate efficiency. Yet, at higher levels, the subsidy becomes distortionary.
Research: Link to my working papers and work in progress.
Teaching: Link to my teaching portfolio.