IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp16840.html

Competitive Job Seekers: When Sharing Less Leaves Firms at a Loss

Author

Listed:
  • Chiplunkar, Gaurav

    (University of Virginia)

  • Kelley, Erin

    (World Bank)

  • Lane, Gregory

    (University of Chicago)

Abstract

We study how job-seekers share information about jobs within their social network, and its implications for firms. We randomly increase the amount of competition for a job and find that job-seekers are less likely to share information about the job with their high ability peers. This lowers the quality of applicants, hires, and performance on the job - suggesting that firms who disseminate job information through social networks may see lower quality applicants than expected for their most competitive positions. While randomly offering higher wages attracts better talent, it is not able to fully overcome these strategic disincentives in information sharing.

Suggested Citation

  • Chiplunkar, Gaurav & Kelley, Erin & Lane, Gregory, 2024. "Competitive Job Seekers: When Sharing Less Leaves Firms at a Loss," IZA Discussion Papers 16840, IZA Network @ LISER.
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16840
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp16840.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jeffrey A. Flory & Andreas Leibbrandt & John A. List, 2015. "Do Competitive Workplaces Deter Female Workers? A Large-Scale Natural Field Experiment on Job Entry Decisions," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 82(1), pages 122-155.
    2. Conrad Miller & Ian M. Schmutte, 2021. "The Dynamics of Referral Hiring and Racial Inequality: Evidence from Brazil," NBER Working Papers 29246, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. 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.
    4. Lori Beaman & Jeremy Magruder, 2012. "Who Gets the Job Referral? Evidence from a Social Networks Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(7), pages 3574-3593, December.
    5. Catia Batista & Pedro Vicente & Marcel Fafchamps, 2018. "Keep It Simple: A field experiment on information sharing in social networks," NOVAFRICA Working Paper Series wp1801, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics, NOVAFRICA.
    6. Suresh de Mel & David McKenzie & Christopher Woodruff, 2019. "Labor Drops: Experimental Evidence on the Return to Additional Labor in Microenterprises," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 202-235, January.
    7. Crepon,Bruno Jacques Jean Philippe & Premand,Patrick, 2018. "Creating new positions ? direct and indirect effects of a subsidized apprenticeship program," Policy Research Working Paper Series 8561, The World Bank.
    8. Livia Alfonsi & Oriana Bandiera & Vittorio Bassi & Robin Burgess & Imran Rasul & Munshi Sulaiman & Anna Vitali, 2020. "Tackling Youth Unemployment: Evidence From a Labor Market Experiment in Uganda," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(6), pages 2369-2414, November.
    9. Girum Abebe & A. Stefano Caria & Esteban Ortiz-Ospina, 2021. "The Selection of Talent: Experimental and Structural Evidence from Ethiopia," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(6), pages 1757-1806, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Elena Ashtari Tafti & Mimosa Distefano & Tetyana Surovtseva, 2024. "Gender, careers and peers' gender mix," CEP Discussion Papers dp2008, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.

    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. Martin Chegere & Paolo Falco & Andreas Menzel, 2023. "Social Ties at Work and Effort Choice: Experimental Evidence from Tanzania," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp763, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    2. Chegere, Martin J. & Falco, Paolo & Menzel, Andreas, 2024. "Social ties at work and effort choice: Experimental evidence from Tanzania," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    3. Clochard Gwen-Jirō & Carlos Gomez-Gonzalez & Marco Henriques Pereira, 2025. "Better the Devil You Know: Managers’ Networks, Hiring Decisions and Team Performance," ISER Discussion Paper 1275, Institute of Social and Economic Research, The University of Osaka.
    4. Santiago Caicedo & Miguel Espinosa & Arthur Seibold, 2022. "Unwilling to Train?—Firm Responses to the Colombian Apprenticeship Regulation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(2), pages 507-550, March.
    5. Vittorio Bassi & Aisha Nansamba, 2022. "Screening and Signalling Non-Cognitive Skills: Experimental Evidence from Uganda," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(642), pages 471-511.
    6. Livia Alfonsi & Oriana Bandiera & Vittorio Bassi & Robin Burgess & Imran Rasul & Munshi Sulaiman & Anna Vitali, 2020. "Tackling Youth Unemployment: Evidence From a Labor Market Experiment in Uganda," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(6), pages 2369-2414, November.
    7. Oriana Bandiera & Ahmed Elsayed & Andrea Smurra & Céline Zipfel, 2022. "Young Adults and Labor Markets in Africa," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 36(1), pages 81-100, Winter.
    8. Farzana Afridi & Amrita Dhillon & Swati Sharma, 2015. "Social Networks and Labour Productivity: A Survey of Recent Theory and Evidence," Indian Economic Review, Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics, vol. 50(1), pages 25-42.
    9. Fafchamps, Marcel & Islam, Asad & Malek, Mohammad Abdul & Pakrashi, Debayan, 2020. "Can referral improve targeting? Evidence from an agricultural training experiment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    10. Hensel, Lukas & Tekleselassie, Tsegay & Witte, Marc J., 2021. "Formalized Employee Search and Labor Demand," IZA Discussion Papers 14839, IZA Network @ LISER.
    11. Yana Gallen & Melanie Wasserman, 2021. "Informed Choices: Gender Gaps in Career Advice," Working Papers 2021-025, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    12. Martin Abel & Rulof Burger & Patrizio Piraino, 2017. "The value of reference letters," Working Papers 06/2017, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    13. Lena Hensvik & Oskar Nordström Skans, 2016. "Social Networks, Employee Selection, and Labor Market Outcomes," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(4), pages 825-867.
    14. Guido Friebel & Matthias Heinz & Mitchell Hoffman & Nick Zubanov, 2023. "What Do Employee Referral Programs Do? Measuring the Direct and Overall Effects of a Management Practice," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 131(3), pages 633-686.
    15. Christian Dustmann & Albrecht Glitz & Uta Schönberg & Herbert Brücker, 2016. "Referral-based Job Search Networks," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(2), pages 514-546.
    16. Amanda Pallais & Emily Glassberg Sands, 2015. "Why the Referential Treatment: Evidence from Field Experiments on Referrals," NBER Working Papers 21357, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Dariel, Aurelie & Riedl, Arno & Siegenthaler, Simon, 2021. "Referral hiring and wage formation in a market with adverse selection," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 109-130.
    18. Balázs Lengyel & Rikard H. Eriksson, 2017. "Co-worker networks, labour mobility and productivity growth in regions," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 17(3), pages 635-660.
    19. Benjamin Lester & David A. Rivers & Giorgio Topa, 2021. "The Heterogeneous Impact of Referrals on Labor Market Outcomes," Staff Reports 987, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    20. Meta Brown & Elizabeth Setren & Giorgio Topa, 2016. "Do Informal Referrals Lead to Better Matches? Evidence from a Firm's Employee Referral System," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(1), pages 161-209.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • L14 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Transactional Relationships; Contracts and Reputation
    • M51 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Firm Employment Decisions; Promotions
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

    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:iza:izadps:dp16840. 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: Mark Fallak (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaalu.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.