The published version of this article is available here at the American Economic Review.
Abstract
We assess South African workseekers' skills and disseminate the assessment results to explore how limited information affects firm and workseeker behavior. Giving workseekers assessment results that they can credibly share with firms increases workseekers' employment and earnings and better aligns their skills, beliefs and search strategies. Giving workseekers assessment results that they cannot easily share with firms has similar effects on beliefs and search, but smaller effects on employment and earnings. Giving assessment results only to firms shifts interview decisions. These findings show that getting credible skill information to the right agents can improve outcomes in the labor market.
In response to the Covid-19 crisis, 186 countries implemented direct cash transfers to households, and 181 introduced in-kind programs that lowered the cost of utilities such as electricity, water, transport, and mobile money.
Organizational and managerial structure plays an important role in the productivity difference among firms. However, studies that assessed the quality of firm management and its link with their performance are still scanty.
Research suggests that partisanship and social media usage correlate with belief in COVID-19 misinformation, and that misinformation shapes citizens’ willingness to get vaccinated.
Using data from the largest online job portal in Nigeria, we document: (a) gender differences in salary offers for jobs, and (b) the response of (a) to recessions.
Many small businesses in low-income countries hire employees from their kinship networks. This fact is often attributed to hiring from the kinship network reducing contracting frictions or informational asymmetries.
Worker sorting into tasks and occupations based on their skills plays a potentially important role in aggregate labor productivity. This sorting may be inefficient if jobseekers do not apply to jobs that match their skills.