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on Human Capital and Human Resource Management |
| By: | Yana Gallen; Melanie Wasserman |
| Abstract: | This paper provides the first causal evidence that gender affects the information an individual receives about careers. We conduct a large-scale field experiment in which real college students seek career information from 10, 000 working professionals. We randomize whether a professional receives a message from a male or a female student. When students ask broadly for information about a career, female students receive substantially more information on work/life balance than male students. This gender difference persists when students specifically ask about work/life balance. A survey of professionals suggests non-altruistic motives for discussing work/life balance with women. Combining findings from the field experiment and results from an information intervention, we conclude that gender gaps in information received about work/life balance are consequential for gender gaps in career intentions. |
| JEL: | C93 J16 J24 J71 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35750 |
| By: | Borra, Cristina; Cuevas-Ruiz, Pilar |
| Abstract: | Gender gaps in measured academic performance often influence access to selective university programs, and, consequently, educational sorting and subsequent career trajectories. Differences in the design of high-stakes evaluation methods may therefore affect these gaps by changing how students’ performance is assessed. We examine whether differences in evaluation methods contribute to gender gaps in measured performance using population-level data from a non-self-selected setting in which continuous teacher-assigned grades and a blind, standardized university entrance examination jointly determine university access. Within-student comparisons show that gender gaps in measured performance are approximately 0.46 standard deviations larger under non-blind continuous assessment than under blind, standardized testing. Our findings provide little support for explanations based on competitive pressure or systematic advantages enjoyed by female students under continuous assessment arising from teacher grading practices or differential effort. The results are instead consistent with gender differences in non-cognitive traits that are more fully captured under continuous assessment, as well as with differences in the extent to which students identify with the content being evaluated. |
| Keywords: | competitive pressure;evaluation methods;gender gaps;gendered content;grading bias;non-cognitive traits;university access |
| JEL: | J16 I21 |
| Date: | 2026–08–21 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:140840 |
| By: | Shota Ichihashi; Fei Li; Dihan Zou |
| Abstract: | We study peer monitoring design in knowledge production. A principal leads agents who work on different but related tasks. By working on their own tasks, agents acquire information that is useful for evaluating their peers' performance. We consider robust contracts under which effort by all agents is the unique rationalizable outcome. The optimal contract induces a hierarchy of monitoring authority: agents easier for the principal to monitor directly are assigned greater authority to evaluate other agents. Task diversity improves information value but weakens peer monitoring. This tension distorts optimal public task assignment toward the principal's core expertise. Confidential random assignment relaxes this distortion by decoupling information production from the perceived monitoring structure. |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2609.10499 |
| By: | Ekiz, Çiğdem (RS: GSBE MGSoG, Maastricht Graduate School of Governance); Gürer, Eren; Taymaz, Erol |
| Abstract: | We examine how innovation shapes firm-level workforce dynamics using rich administrative data from Turkiye, a developing economy characterized by medium-technology, incremental innovation. We find that patent-based innovation increases both firm size and average daily wages, with the largest employment gains among workers earning just above the median wage. To uncover the mechanisms behind these outcomes, we construct worker transition matrices. Relative to comparable non-innovative firms, innovative firms (i) retain incumbent workers at higher rates, particularly at the top of the wage distribution, (ii) promote retained workers into higher wage bins more frequently, and (iii) hire more new workers, disproportionately into higher wage bins. Finally, occupational composition analysis shows that employment growth is concentrated among technical and production occupations, consistent with the medium-technology, incremental nature of innovation in our sample. |
| Keywords: | innovation, patents, wages, employment, worker transitions, human resources |
| JEL: | J21 J31 O15 O30 O31 |
| Date: | 2026–09–16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unm:unumer:2026013 |
| By: | Hild, Paul Ergün; Hilweg-Waldeck, Michael |
| Abstract: | Career choice, earnings, and other key economic outcomes have been linked to gender differences in willingness to compete. This paper examines how gender stereotypes shape these differences. We conduct a meta-study of prior work and demonstrate that the wide variation in gender competition gaps can be explained by stereotypes: Men enter competitions more in traditionally male-stereotyped domains, whereas in female-stereotyped domains, the gap is smaller or even reversed. Importantly, these differences are not explained by gender gaps in performance. To explore mechanisms, we collect belief data in an elicitation experiment. We find that stereotyped beliefs about gender performance differences explain more than half of the variation in competition gaps in the literature. Next, we experimentally manipulate stereotypes through framing and informational cues about others beliefs. Although these interventions significantly shift beliefs, the effects do not translate into changes in competitive behavior. Our findings highlight the importance of stereotypes in shaping gender gaps in competitiveness while suggesting that shifting beliefs alone is unlikely to close these gaps without deeper or longer-term interventions. |
| Keywords: | Gender, Competitiveness, Stereotypes, Beliefs, Experiment |
| JEL: | D91 J16 C90 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:zewdip:343565 |
| By: | Gabriela Galassi; Gaelan MacKenzie |
| Abstract: | We estimate the direct effects of robot adoption on the within-firm distribution of income between non-owner workers and individual owners in Canadian private corporations. We link firm-level data on industrial robot imports to matched owner-worker-firm data that identify owners of private corporations, their employment income, and firms’ dividend payments to owners and retained earnings. Robot adoption is associated with sizable increases in firm revenues, value added, and non-owner employment and payroll. Unlike several studies of robot adoption in other settings, we find little evidence that adoption reduces adopters’ conventionally measured labor share of value added; if anything, the non-owner labor share increases slightly, while the total owner income share does not rise. Owners nevertheless benefit from adoption, but primarily through increases in employment income. These results underscore the importance of distinguishing owner employment income from ordinary worker payroll for measuring how firm-level technology shocks affect workers, owners, and the distribution of income within firms. |
| Keywords: | Structural challenges; Digitalization and productivity |
| JEL: | D D2 D22 D3 D33 J J2 J23 J3 J31 O O3 O33 |
| Date: | 2026–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bca:bocawp:26-34 |
| By: | Hozova, Karolina; Havranek, Tomas; Irsova, Zuzana |
| Abstract: | Appointing more women to corporate boards is widely expected to also raise firms' environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance. We provide the first meta-analysis of this relationship, drawing on 533 estimates from 106 studies that measure ESG performance with Bloomberg or LSEG ratings. The average reported effect of a one-percentage-point increase in board gender diversity is about 0.28 ESG points, but much of it does not survive scrutiny. Correcting for publication bias with a battery of linear and non-linear methods lowers the effect to between roughly 0.08 and 0.17 points. A best-practice estimate that also imposes sound study design puts it near 0.12 for most of the world, markedly higher for the Middle East, and near -0.11 for the Southeast Asian markets that dominate the Asian evidence. The differences that remain across studies are systematic, driven mainly by geography and by the choice of estimation method rather than by the ESG-rating provider or the controls a study includes. Board gender diversity may be well worth pursuing on its own merits, but the evidence that it reliably raises ESG scores is weaker than the published record suggests. |
| Keywords: | board gender diversity, ESG ratings, meta-analysis, publication bias, corporate governance, female directors |
| JEL: | G34 M14 J16 C11 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:343305 |