Moritz Seebacher

PhD student at the ifo Institute and LMU Munich.

Welcome!

I am Moritz Seebacher, a PhD student at the ifo Center for the Economics of Education and LMU Munich. I am an applied microeconomist working at the intersection of education and labor economics. My current research primarily uses LinkedIn data to study how skills, social connections, and technological progress shape career trajectories and labor market inequality.

I am on the 2026/27 job market. Expected graduation: Summer 2027.

Fields: Labor Economics · Economics of Education · Big Data Economics

Job Market Paper

Career Effects of Online Social Network Access at Labor Market Entry

Abstract. Does access to online social networking platforms at labor market entry affect young workers’ careers? Exploiting the staggered introduction of Facebook across U.S. colleges in a generalized difference-in-differences design, I estimate the causal impact of Facebook access before vs. after labor market entry on the career trajectories of U.S. business and economics students. Using detailed resume data from nearly 900,000 public LinkedIn profiles, I find that students with early access to Facebook are more likely to receive early-career promotions, work in higher-paying jobs, and reach senior leadership roles in their mid-30s to early 40s. I provide evidence that the long-run career effects can be explained by (i) a more successful college-to-work transition, driven by college peers helping each other in the early-career job search process, (ii) improved early-career worker-firm match quality, enabling students to climb up the career ladder within their organizations, and (iii) early-career sorting into higher-quality and career-supporting firms. The results highlight how access to online social networks during a sensitive period of a young worker’s career can facilitate the college-to-work transition, reduce information frictions, and generate long-run career benefits.

Publications

Working Papers

Work in Progress

  • Alumni Networks, First Job Placements, and the College Selectivity Premium (with Cäcilia vom Baur, Katia Werkmeister, and Ludger Woessmann)

Policy Papers (non-refereed)

CV

You can find my CV here.