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Abigail Wozniak Vice President and Director, Opportunity & Inclusive Growth Institute

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Research interests

Labor, urban, and personnel economics

Connect with Abigail

Abigail (Abbie) Wozniak is a labor economist and vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, where she serves as director of the Opportunity & Inclusive Growth Institute. Her research has examined migration between states and cities, employer compensation and screening policies, and sources of inequality in the labor market. Abbie has served in advisory and affiliate roles for numerous institutions, including the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), the Labor and Employment Relations Association (LERA), the W.E. Upjohn Institute, McKinsey & Company, and the EconJobMarket website. Her work has been featured regularly in the media, and she has been interviewed on Marketplace, National Public Radio, Bloomberg TV, and other outlets.

From 2014 to 2015, Abbie served as senior economist to the White House Council of Economic Advisers, working on labor economics issues. She was a visiting fellow at Princeton University in 2008–09 and the University of Chicago’s Becker Friedman Institute in 2017. She previously served on the faculty in the Department of Economics at the University of Notre Dame, where she earned tenure in 2013. She is a graduate of Harvard University (Ph.D.) and the University of Chicago (A.B.). She is a former associate economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.


Refereed Publications

Changing Stability in U.S. Employment Relationships: A Tale of Two Tails
2024 | Journal of Human Resources, 59(1): 35-69 | With Raven Molloy and Christopher L. Smith
Previously: Institute Working Paper 56

The Economics of Internal Migration: Advances and Policy Questions
2023 | Journal of Economic Literature, 61(1): 144-180 | With Ning Jia, Raven Molloy, and Christopher Smith

Making Big Decisions: The Impact of Moves on Marriage among U.S. Army Personnel
2023 | Journal of Human Resources, 58(3): 713-754 | With Susan Payne Carter

Who's in and Who's Out Under Workplace COVID Symptom Screening?
2021 | Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 40(2): 614-641 | With Krista Ruffini and Aaron Sojourner
Previously: Institute Working Paper 36

Disparities Old and New in US Mental Health during the COVID-19 Pandemic
2020 | Fiscal Studies, 41(3): 709-732 | With Zachary Swaziek

What Explains the Rising Share of U.S. Men in Registered Nursing?
2020 | Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 73(1): 91-123 | With Elizabeth Munnich
Previously: CEG Working Paper (2017 version)

Labor Market Transitions and the Decline in Long-Distance Migration in the US
2017 | Demography, 54(2): 631-653 | With Raven Molloy and Christopher L. Smith
Portions previously circulated as "Declining Migration in the US: The Role of the Labor Market" in 2014 in the NBER and FEDS working paper series.

The Effects of College Education on Health
2016 | Journal of Health Economics, 50: 99-114 | With Kasey Buckles, Andreas Hagemann, Ofer Malamud, and Melinda Morrill

Understanding Declining Fluidity in the U.S. Labor Market
2016 | Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Spring: 183-237 | With Raven Molloy, Christopher L. Smith, Riccardo Trezzi

Discrimination and the Effects of Drug Testing on Black Employment
2015 | The Review of Economics and Statistics, 97(3): 548-566

Racial Differences in Inequality Aversion: Evidence from Real World Respondents in the Ultimatum Game
2012 | Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 84(2): 600-617 | With John Griffin and David Nickerson

The Impact of College on Migration: Evidence from the Vietnam Generation
2012 | Journal of Human Resources, 47(4): 913-950 | With Ofer Malamud

Timing Is Everything: Short-Run Population Impacts of Immigration in US Cities
2012 | Journal of Urban Economics, 72(1): 60-78 | With Thomas J. Murray

Internal Migration in the United States
2011 | Journal of Economic Perspectives, 25(3): 173-196 | With Raven Molloy and Christopher L. Smith

Labor Reallocation over the Business Cycle: New Evidence from Internal Migration
2011 | Journal of Labor Economics, 29(4): 697-739 | With Raven Molloy

Field Perspectives on the Causes of Low Employment Among Less Skilled Black Men
2011 | The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 70(3): 811-844

Are College Graduates More Responsive to Distant Labor Market Opportunities?
2010 | Journal of Human Resources, 45(4): 944-970

Product Markets and Paychecks: Deregulation's Effect on the Compensation Structure in Banking
2007 | Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 60(2): 246-267