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Searching with friends

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  • A Stefano Caria
  • Simon Franklin
  • Marc Witte

Abstract

Do policy interventions disrupt social networks? We study how a job-search assistance intervention in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, affects the job-search partners of programme participants. We find that the partners of treated participants reduce their job search efforts compared to the partners of untreated jobseekers. This is not because they receive more information about vacancies from their treated friends. On the contrary, we document less information sharing between job-search partners. We present suggestive evidence that this may be because cooperation in job search becomes harder when one jobseeker has access to more resources than the other.

Suggested Citation

  • A Stefano Caria & Simon Franklin & Marc Witte, 2018. "Searching with friends," CSAE Working Paper Series 2018-14, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    • Handle: RePEc:csa:wpaper:2018-14
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    Cited by:

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    3. Fernando, A. Nilesh, 2021. "Seeking the treated: The impact of mobile extension on farmer information exchange in India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    4. Toman Barsbai & Victoria Licuanan & Andreas Steinmayr & Erwin Tiongson & Dean Yang, 2020. "Information and the Acquisition of Social Network Connections," NBER Working Papers 27346, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D85 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Network Formation
    • L14 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Transactional Relationships; Contracts and Reputation
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
    • D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty

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