IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/3682.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Employee Referrals and Efficiency Wages

Author

Listed:
  • Kugler, Adriana D.

Abstract

Many workers believe that personal contacts are crucial for obtaining jobs in high-wage sectors. On the other hand, firms in high-wage sectors report using employee referrals because they help provide screening and monitoring of new employees. This Paper develops a matching model that can explain the link between inter-industry wage differentials and the use of employee referrals. Referrals lower monitoring costs because high-effort referees can exert peer pressure on co-workers, allowing firms to pay lower efficiency wages. On the other hand, informal searches provide fewer job and applicant contacts than formal methods (e.g., newspaper ads). In equilibrium, the matching process generates segmentation in the labour market because of heterogeneity in the size of referral networks. Referrals match ?good? high-paying jobs to well-connected workers, while formal methods match less attractive jobs to less-connected workers. Industry-level data show a positive correlation between industry wage premia and use of employee referrals. Moreover, evidence using the NLSY shows similar positive and significant OLS and fixed-effects estimates of the ?returns? to employee referrals, but insignificant effects once the sector of employment is controlled for. This evidence suggests referred workers earn higher wages not because of higher unobserved ability or better matches but rather because they are hired in high-wage sectors.

Suggested Citation

  • Kugler, Adriana D., 2002. "Employee Referrals and Efficiency Wages," CEPR Discussion Papers 3682, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:3682
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP3682
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Card, David & Krueger, Alan B, 1994. "Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry in New Jersey and Pennsylvania," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(4), pages 772-793, September.
    2. Harry J. Holzer, 1987. "Hiring Procedures in the Firm: Their Economic Determinants and Outcomes," NBER Working Papers 2185, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Barron, John M & Bishop, John, 1985. "Extensive Search, Intensive Search, and Hiring Costs: New Evidence on Employer Hiring Activity," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 23(3), pages 363-382, July.
    4. Datcher, Linda, 1983. "The Impact of Informal Networks of Quit Behavior," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 65(3), pages 491-495, August.
    5. Mortensen, D. T. & Vishwanath, T., 1995. "Personal contacts and earnings: It is who you know!," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 103-104, March.
    6. John M. Abowd & Francis Kramarz & David N. Margolis, 1999. "High Wage Workers and High Wage Firms," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(2), pages 251-334, March.
    7. Dickens, William T & Katz, Lawrence F & Lang, Kevin & Summers, Lawrence H, 1989. "Employee Crime and the Monitoring Puzzle," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 7(3), pages 331-347, July.
    8. Bernheim, B Douglas, 1994. "A Theory of Conformity," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(5), pages 841-877, October.
    9. Robert Gibbons & Lawrence Katz, 1992. "Does Unmeasured Ability Explain Inter-Industry Wage Differentials?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 59(3), pages 515-535.
    10. Adriana D. Kugler & Gilles Saint-Paul, 2004. "How Do Firing Costs Affect Worker Flows in a World with Adverse Selection?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(3), pages 553-584, July.
    11. Montgomery, James D, 1991. "Social Networks and Labor-Market Outcomes: Toward an Economic Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1407-1418, December.
    12. Krueger, Alan B & Summers, Lawrence H, 1988. "Efficiency Wages and the Inter-industry Wage Structure," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(2), pages 259-293, March.
    13. William T. Dickens & Lawrence F. Katz, 1987. "Inter-Industry Wage Differences and Theories of Wage Determination," NBER Working Papers 2271, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Kandel, Eugene & Lazear, Edward P, 1992. "Peer Pressure and Partnerships," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(4), pages 801-817, August.
    15. Edward P. Lazear & Robert L. Moore, 1984. "Incentives, Productivity, and Labor Contracts," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 99(2), pages 275-296.
    16. Olivier Jean Blanchard & Peter A. Diamond, 1989. "The Aggregate Matching Function," NBER Working Papers 3175, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Matthew S. Goldberg, 1982. "Discrimination, Nepotism, and Long-Run Wage Differentials," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 97(2), pages 307-319.
    18. Elster, Jon, 1989. "Social Norms and Economic Theory," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 99-117, Fall.
    19. Alan B. Krueger & Lawrence H. Summers, 1986. "Reflections on the Inter-Industry Wage Structure," NBER Working Papers 1968, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Harry J. Holzer & Lawrence F. Katz & Alan B. Krueger, 1991. "Job Queues and Wages," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(3), pages 739-768.
    21. O'Regan Katherine M. & Quigley John M., 1993. "Family Networks and Youth Access to Jobs," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 230-248, September.
    22. Saloner, Garth, 1985. "Old Boy Networks as Screening Mechanisms," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(3), pages 255-267, July.
    23. Shapiro, Carl & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1984. "Equilibrium Unemployment as a Worker Discipline Device," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(3), pages 433-444, June.
    24. Holzer, Harry J, 1988. "Search Method Use by Unemployed Youth," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 6(1), pages 1-20, January.
    25. Diamond, Peter A, 1981. "Mobility Costs, Frictional Unemployment, and Efficiency," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(4), pages 798-812, August.
    26. Peter Diamond (ed.), 1990. "Growth / Productivity / Unemployment," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262041103, December.
    27. Levine, David I., 1992. "Piece rates, output restriction, and conformism," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 473-489, September.
    28. Akerlof, George A, 1985. "Discriminatory, Status-based Wages among Tradition-oriented, Stochastically Trading Coconut Producers," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(2), pages 265-276, April.
    29. Campbell, Carl M, III, 1993. "Do Firms Pay Efficiency Wages? Evidence with Data at the Firm Level," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 11(3), pages 442-470, July.
    30. MacLeod, W Bentley & Malcomson, James M, 1989. "Implicit Contracts, Incentive Compatibility, and Involuntary Unemployment," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(2), pages 447-480, March.
    31. William T. Dickens & Lawrence F. Katz, 1986. "Interindustry Wage Differences and Industry Characteristics," NBER Working Papers 2014, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    32. Malcomson, James M, 1981. "Unemployment and the Efficiency Wage Hypothesis," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 91(364), pages 848-866, December.
    33. Simon, Curtis J & Warner, John T, 1992. "Matchmaker, Matchmaker: The Effect of Old Boy Networks on Job Match Quality, Earnings, and Tenure," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 10(3), pages 306-330, July.
    34. Graham L. Reid, 1972. "Job Search and the Effectiveness of Job-Finding Methods," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 25(4), pages 479-495, July.
    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. Adriana D. Kugler, 1997. "Employee referrals and the inter-industry wage structure," Economics Working Papers 252, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    2. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2373-2437 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pb:p:2291-2372 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Ponzo, Michela & Scoppa, Vincenzo, 2010. "The use of informal networks in Italy: Efficiency or favoritism?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 89-99, January.
    5. Sicilian, Paul, 1995. "Employer search and worker-firm match quality," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(35), pages 515-532.
    6. Robert Plasman & François Rycx & Ilan Tojerow, 2006. "Industry wage differentials, unobserved ability, and rent-sharing: evidence from matched employer-employee, 1992-2005," DULBEA Working Papers 06-14.RS, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    7. Ioana Marinescu & Ronald Wolthoff, 2020. "Opening the Black Box of the Matching Function: The Power of Words," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 38(2), pages 535-568.
    8. Bhaskar, V. & To, Ted, 2003. "Oligopsony and the distribution of wages," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 371-399, April.
    9. Gruetter, Max & Lalive, Rafael, 2009. "The importance of firms in wage determination," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 149-160, April.
    10. Alan Carruth & Bill Collier & Andy Dickerson, 1999. "Inter-industry Wage Differences and Individual Heterogeneity: How Competitive is Wage Setting in the UK?," Studies in Economics 9914, School of Economics, University of Kent.
    11. Emanuela Ghignoni, 2017. "Who do you know or what do you know? Informal recruitment channels, family background and university enrolments," Working Papers in Public Economics 179, University of Rome La Sapienza, Department of Economics and Law.
    12. Francois, Patrick, 1998. "Gender discrimination without gender difference: theory and policy responses," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 1-32, April.
    13. Michele Mosca & Francesco Pastore, 2009. "Wage Effects of Recruitment Methods: The Case of the Italian Social Service Sector," AIEL Series in Labour Economics, in: Marco Musella & Sergio Destefanis (ed.), Paid and Unpaid Labour in the Social Economy. An International Perspective, edition 1, chapter 8, pages 115-141, AIEL - Associazione Italiana Economisti del Lavoro.
    14. Mauro Sylos Labini, 2004. "Social Networks and Wages: It's All About Connections!," LEM Papers Series 2004/10, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    15. Oyer, Paul & Schaefer, Scott, 2011. "Personnel Economics: Hiring and Incentives," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 20, pages 1769-1823, Elsevier.
    16. Michele Pellizzari, 2010. "Do Friends and Relatives Really Help in Getting a Good Job?," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 63(3), pages 494-510, April.
    17. Veronique Genre & Karsten Kohn & Daphne Momferatou, 2011. "Understanding inter-industry wage structures in the euro area," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(11), pages 1299-1313.
    18. Ross, Stephen L. & Zenou, Yves, 2008. "Are shirking and leisure substitutable? An empirical test of efficiency wages based on urban economic theory," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(5), pages 498-517, September.
    19. Mehmet Bac & Eren Inci, 2010. "The Old‐Boy Network and the Quality of Entrepreneurs," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(4), pages 889-918, December.
    20. Marcelo Arbex & Dennis O'Dea & David Wiczer, 2019. "Network Search: Climbing The Job Ladder Faster," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 60(2), pages 693-720, May.
    21. Steven Ross & Yves Zenou, 2003. "Shirking, Commuting and Labor Market Outcomes," Working papers 2003-41, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    22. Paul Hek & Daniel Vuuren, 2011. "Are older workers overpaid? A literature review," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 18(4), pages 436-460, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Inter-industry wage differentials; Efficiency wage models; Matching models; Social Networks; Segmentation; Unemployment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • J41 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Labor Contracts
    • J63 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
    • J68 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - 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:cpr:ceprdp:3682. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.