How wage announcements affect job search - a field experiment

• We study how job seekers respond to wage announcements by assigning wages randomly to pairs of otherwise similar vacancies in a large number of professions. High wage vacancies attract more interest, in contrast with much of the evidence based on observational data. Some applicants only show interest in the low wage vacancy even when they were exposed to both. Both findings are core predictions of theories of directed/competitive search where workers trade o_ the wage with the perceived competition for the job. A calibrated model with multiple applications and on-the-job search induces magnitudes broadly in line with the empirical findings.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Nationalekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Economics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

online job search

directed search

wage competition

field experiments

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

rap (subject category)