Ineffiient Hiring in Entry-Level Labor Markets

52 Pages Posted: 27 Feb 2012

Date Written: February 14, 2012

Abstract

Hiring inexperienced workers generates information about their abilities. If this information is public, workers obtain its benefi…ts. If workers cannot compensate …firms for hiring them, fi…rms will hire too few inexperienced workers. I hired 952 randomly-selected workers in an online labor market, giving them either a detailed or coarse public evaluation. Both hiring workers and providing more detailed evaluations substantially improved workers subsequent employment outcomes. These bene…fits did not come solely at other workers' expense: the treatments increased overall market employment. Under plausible assumptions, the experiment's benefi…ts exceeded its cost, suggesting that some experimental workers had been inefficiently unemployed.

Suggested Citation

Pallais, Amanda, Ineffiient Hiring in Entry-Level Labor Markets (February 14, 2012). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2012131 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2012131

Amanda Pallais (Contact Author)

Harvard University ( email )

1875 Cambridge Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

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