IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_8802.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Designing the Market for Job Vacancies: A Trust Experiment with Employment Centers Staff

Author

Listed:
  • Guglielmo Briscese
  • Andreas Leibbrandt

Abstract

Trust is a key factor for the well-functioning of labor markets. We experimentally study the behavior of staff at competing employment agencies who serve as matchmakers between labor supply and demand. Employment agents can collaborate by sharing vacancies and job seekers at the risk of the other agent approaching the employer to place their own job seekers. In a framed field experiment with actual employment agents we test mechanisms to increase collaboration. We find that financial incentives to collaborate increase vacancy sharing but also increase the likelihood of the other provider approaching the employer to place their own job seekers. We also find that social incentives can backfire and decrease vacancy sharing unless employment agents have a perfect reputation. However, social incentives have a positive effect in increasing cooperative behavior. We discuss the implications for the design of incentives to increase trust in competitive markets like that of employment agencies.

Suggested Citation

  • Guglielmo Briscese & Andreas Leibbrandt, 2020. "Designing the Market for Job Vacancies: A Trust Experiment with Employment Centers Staff," CESifo Working Paper Series 8802, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8802
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/cesifo1_wp8802.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bennmarker, Helge & Grönqvist, Erik & Öckert, Björn, 2013. "Effects of contracting out employment services: Evidence from a randomized experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 68-84.
    2. Philippe Aghion & Yann Algan & Pierre Cahuc & Andrei Shleifer, 2010. "Regulation and Distrust," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(3), pages 1015-1049.
    3. Amelie Schiprowski, 2020. "The Role of Caseworkers in Unemployment Insurance: Evidence from Unplanned Absences," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 38(4), pages 1189-1225.
    4. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/4km7l02j139aj8hl7kcccmqk9s is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Gary Charness, 2004. "Attribution and Reciprocity in an Experimental Labor Market," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(3), pages 665-688, July.
    6. Jordi Brandts & Gary Charness, 2011. "The strategy versus the direct-response method: a first survey of experimental comparisons," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 14(3), pages 375-398, September.
    7. Briscese, Guglielmo & Feltovich, Nick & Slonim, Robert L., 2021. "Who benefits from corporate social responsibility? Reciprocity in the presence of social incentives and self-selection," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 288-304.
    8. Patrick Bolton & Mathias Dewatripont, 2005. "Contract Theory," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262025760, December.
    9. Ernst Fehr & Georg Kirchsteiger & Arno Riedl, 1993. "Does Fairness Prevent Market Clearing? An Experimental Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(2), pages 437-459.
    10. David Y. Yang & Leonardo Bursztyn, 2022. "Misperceptions About Others," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 14(1), pages 425-452, August.
    11. Kirchler, Erich & Fehr, Ernst & Evans, Robert, 1996. "Social exchange in the labor market: Reciprocity and trust versus egoistic money maximization," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 313-341, June.
    12. Bicchieri, Cristina & Erte, Xiao, 2007. "Do the right thing: But only if others do so," MPRA Paper 4609, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Pierre Koning & Carolyn J. Heinrich, 2013. "Cream‐Skimming, Parking and Other Intended and Unintended Effects of High‐Powered, Performance‐Based Contracts," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(3), pages 461-483, June.
    14. Stephanie A. Heger & Robert Slonim & Ellen Garbarino & Carmen Wang & Daniel Waller, 2020. "Redesigning the Market for Volunteers: A Donor Registry," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(8), pages 3528-3541, August.
    15. Uri Gneezy & Stephan Meier & Pedro Rey-Biel, 2011. "When and Why Incentives (Don't) Work to Modify Behavior," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(4), pages 191-210, Fall.
    16. Michael S. Haigh & John A. List, 2005. "Do Professional Traders Exhibit Myopic Loss Aversion? An Experimental Analysis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 60(1), pages 523-534, February.
    17. Iris Bohnet & Steffen Huck, 2004. "Repetition and Reputation: Implications for Trust and Trustworthiness When Institutions Change," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 362-366, May.
    18. Michael Luca, 2011. "Reviews, Reputation, and Revenue: The Case of Yelp.com," Harvard Business School Working Papers 12-016, Harvard Business School, revised Mar 2016.
    19. Rehwald, Kai & Rosholm, Michael & Svarer, Michael, 2015. "Are Public or Private Providers of Employment Services More Effective? Evidence from a Randomized Experiment," IZA Discussion Papers 9365, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Engle-Warnick, Jim & Slonim, Robert L., 2004. "The evolution of strategies in a repeated trust game," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 55(4), pages 553-573, December.
    21. Ernst Fehr & John A. List, 2004. "The Hidden Costs and Returns of Incentives-Trust and Trustworthiness Among CEOs," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 2(5), pages 743-771, September.
    22. Tonin, Mirco & Vlassopoulos, Michael, 2010. "Disentangling the sources of pro-socially motivated effort: A field experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(11-12), pages 1086-1092, December.
    23. Nava Ashraf & Iris Bohnet & Nikita Piankov, 2006. "Decomposing trust and trustworthiness," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 9(3), pages 193-208, September.
    24. Johnson, Noel D. & Mislin, Alexandra A., 2011. "Trust games: A meta-analysis," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 865-889.
    25. Ashraf, Nava & Bandiera, Oriana & Jack, B. Kelsey, 2014. "No margin, no mission? A field experiment on incentives for public service delivery," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 1-17.
    26. Gerhard Krug & Gesine Stephan, 2016. "Private and Public Placement Services for Hard-to-Place Unemployed," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 69(2), pages 471-500, March.
    27. Paola Sapienza & Anna Toldra‐Simats & Luigi Zingales, 2013. "Understanding Trust," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 123(12), pages 1313-1332, December.
    28. Barros, Pedro Pita, 2003. "Cream-skimming, incentives for efficiency and payment system," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 419-443, May.
    29. Gesine Stephan, 2016. "Public or private job placement services—Are private ones more effective?," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 285-285, August.
    30. Wenzel, Michael, 2005. "Misperceptions of social norms about tax compliance: From theory to intervention," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 862-883, December.
    31. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/4km7l02j139aj8hl7kcccmqk9s is not listed on IDEAS
    32. Elliott Peranson & Alvin E. Roth, 1999. "The Redesign of the Matching Market for American Physicians: Some Engineering Aspects of Economic Design," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(4), pages 748-780, September.
    33. Brit Grosskopf & Rajiv Sarin, 2010. "Is Reputation Good or Bad? An Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(5), pages 2187-2204, December.
    34. Berg Joyce & Dickhaut John & McCabe Kevin, 1995. "Trust, Reciprocity, and Social History," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 122-142, July.
    35. R. Lynn Hannan & John H. Kagel & Donald V. Moser, 2002. "Partial Gift Exchange in an Experimental Labor Market: Impact of Subject Population Differences, Productivity Differences, and Effort Requests on Behavior," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(4), pages 923-951, October.
    36. Michael Luca & Georgios Zervas, 2016. "Fake It Till You Make It: Reputation, Competition, and Yelp Review Fraud," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 62(12), pages 3412-3427, December.
    37. Le Grand, Julian, 1991. "Quasi-markets and Social Policy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 101(408), pages 1256-1267, September.
    38. Philippe Aghion & Yann Algan & Pierre Cahuc & Andrei Shleifer, 2010. "Regulation and Distrust," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 125(3), pages 1015-1049.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Goeschl, Timo & Jarke, Johannes, 2014. "Trust, but verify? When trustworthiness is observable only through (costly) monitoring," WiSo-HH Working Paper Series 20, University of Hamburg, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences, WISO Research Laboratory.
    2. Meier, Stephan & Pierce, Lamar & Vaccaro, Antonino & La Cara, Barbara, 2016. "Trust and in-group favoritism in a culture of crime," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 132(PA), pages 78-92.
    3. Israel Waichman & Ch’ng Kean Siang & Till Requate & Aric P. Shafran & Eva Camacho-Cuena & Yoshio Iida & Shosh Shahrabani, 2015. "Reciprocity in Labor Market Relationships: Evidence from an Experiment across High-Income OECD Countries," Games, MDPI, vol. 6(4), pages 1-22, October.
    4. Giovanni Bartolomeo & Stefano Papa, 2016. "Trust and reciprocity: extensions and robustness of triadic design," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 19(1), pages 100-115, March.
    5. Calabuig, Vicente & Fatas, Enrique & Olcina, Gonzalo & Rodriguez-Lara, Ismael, 2016. "Carry a big stick, or no stick at all," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 153-171.
    6. Ernst Fehr, 2009. "On The Economics and Biology of Trust," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(2-3), pages 235-266, 04-05.
    7. Duersch, Peter & Oechssler, Jörg & Vadovic, Radovan, 2012. "Sick pay provision in experimental labor markets," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(1), pages 1-19.
    8. Sofianos, Andis, 2022. "Self-reported & revealed trust: Experimental evidence," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    9. Simon Gächter & Daniele Nosenzo & Martin Sefton, 2012. "The Impact of Social Comparisons on Reciprocity," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(4), pages 1346-1367, December.
    10. Michal Bauer & Nathan Fiala & Ian Levely, 2018. "Trusting Former Rebels: An Experimental Approach to Understanding Reintegration after Civil War," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(613), pages 1786-1819, August.
    11. Charness, Gary & Kuhn, Peter, 2011. "Lab Labor: What Can Labor Economists Learn from the Lab?," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 3, pages 229-330, Elsevier.
    12. James Andreoni, 2018. "Satisfaction Guaranteed: When Moral Hazard Meets Moral Preferences," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 159-189, November.
    13. Simon Gächter & Esther Kaiser & Manfred Königstein, 2024. "Incentive contracts crowd out voluntary cooperation: Evidence from gift-exchange experiments," Discussion Papers 2024-02, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    14. Karaja, Elira & Rubin, Jared, 2022. "Θ The cultural transmission of trust norms: Evidence from a lab in the field on a natural experiment," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 1-19.
    15. Murnighan, J. Keith & Wang, Long, 2016. "The social world as an experimental game," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 80-94.
    16. Meier, Stephan & Pierce, Lamar & Vaccaro, Antonino, 2014. "Trust and In-Group Favoritism in a Culture of Crime," IZA Discussion Papers 8169, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. repec:awi:wpaper:0476 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Blair Cleave & Nikos Nikiforakis & Robert Slonim, 2013. "Is there selection bias in laboratory experiments? The case of social and risk preferences," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 16(3), pages 372-382, September.
    19. Bellemare, Charles & Kroger, Sabine, 2007. "On representative social capital," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 183-202, January.
    20. Charness, Gary & Rabin, Matthew, 2005. "Expressed preferences and behavior in experimental games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 151-169, November.
    21. Daniel Woods & Maroš Servátka, 2019. "Nice to you, nicer to me: Does self-serving generosity diminish the reciprocal response?," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 22(2), pages 506-529, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    trust game; labor market; framed field experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D90 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - General
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • J48 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Particular Labor Markets; Public Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_8802. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.