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on Human Capital and Human Resource Management |
| By: | Scoppa, Vincenzo (University of Calabria); Spanò, Idola Francesca (University of Calabria) |
| Abstract: | Gender gaps in labor market outcomes have traditionally been attributed to differences in individual productivity or to discrimination. More recently, several studies have documented the role of gender differences in psychological attitudes. Rather than using data on realized wages, we rely on data on reservation wages – the lowest wage workers are willing to accept – for a sample of Italian graduates. Reservation wages reflect individual attitudes and beliefs more directly, while being less affected by employer discrimination. We first relate reservation wages to educational background, individual characteristics, and family background, and investigate how they depend on labor market expectations. We then analyze how reservation wages depend on preferences over specific job attributes, such as permanent positions, geographical mobility, etc. Applying the Gelbach decomposition to quantify the contribution of each factors, we find a substantial role for preferences for job attributes and expectations. However, our estimates reveal a large unexplained component which is likely driven by gender differences in psychological and social attitudes, such as risk aversion, overconfidence and adherence to social norms. |
| Keywords: | Psychological Attitudes, Graduate Labor Market, Reservation Wages, Gender Gaps, Behavioral Economics |
| JEL: | J16 J32 D83 D91 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18230 |
| By: | Goos, Maarten (Utrecht University); Salomons, Anna (Tilburg University); Scheer, Bas (CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis); Van den Berge, Wiljan (Utrecht School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | The rising incidence of alternative work arrangements, such as outsourcing, raises important questions about worker outcomes in such non-standard labor contracts. We study this question in the Netherlands, a country with a rapid rise in flexible labor contracts, using administrative employer-employee data from 2006--2019. To identify the causal impact of outsourcing, we take advantage of a legal arrangement called "patrolling", where workers hired by one firm are placed on a staffing firm's payroll while maintaining their job duties at the original firm. We find that outsourced workers experience worse labor market outcomes compared to a matched control group. These include persistently lower employment probability, lower hourly wage growth, a lower incidence of permanent contracts, and strikingly reduced pension contributions. This suggests that outsourcing erodes employment protection and job quality and leads to long-term scarring of labor market outcomes. |
| Keywords: | staffing companies, outsourcing, non-standard work arrangements, labor contracts |
| JEL: | J31 J32 J41 J42 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18228 |
| By: | Miklós Koren; Krisztina Orban; Bálint Szilágyi; Almos Telegdy; András Vereckei |
| Abstract: | How much do CEOs matter for firm performance? We estimate the causal effect of CEO quality on productivity using comprehensive administrative data covering the universe of Hungarian firms and CEOs from 1992--2022. We develop a production function framework that separates owner-controlled strategic decisions from CEO-controlled operational decisions. To address the severe measurement error in CEO fixed effects arising from short tenures, we introduce a placebo-controlled event study design: we compare actual CEO transitions to randomly assigned fake transitions in firms with stable leadership. The results reveal that a CEO better than the incumbent increases firm performance by 3% while a worse CEO decreases it by 2%. CEO changes contribute to the variance growth of productivity by 30% in the first 10 years of the firm's existence. The placebo-controlled methodology provides a general solution for estimating individual effects in short-panel settings. |
| Date: | 2025–09–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ceu:econwp:2025_1 |
| By: | John M. Barrios; Jessie Jianwen Guo; Yanping Zhu |
| Abstract: | Financial misconduct is often a team activity, facilitated by face-to-face interactions, shared norms, and trust. We exploit the sudden shift to remote work during COVID-19 to examine how workplace organization shapes collusion and financial misconduct. Using a novel firm-level measure of work-from-home feasibility, we find that firms that are more able to operate remotely experienced large post-2020 declines in misconduct. This decline is found across multiple misreporting proxies and is robust to various alternative measures of remote work. Cross-sectional tests indicate stronger declines in teamwork-intensive firms, firms with effective internal controls, and firms with weaker pre-COVID employee perceptions of culture and leadership. Overall, our findings reflect that financial misconduct is a team activity, sensitive to the organizational structure of the firm, with important implications for governance and organizational design. |
| JEL: | D23 G30 G38 G39 J24 K22 M2 M4 M40 M41 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34417 |
| By: | Banerjee, Swapnendu; Chakraborty, Somenath |
| Abstract: | We examine the impact of social preferences on the choice between individual production and team production. An inequity-averse principal can hire a single or a team of two agents to work on a single project. The agents are inequity-averse with respect to the principal. We show that even without ‘synergy’ a moderately inequity-averse principal can opt for team production. Thus we provide an additional rationale for the empirically observed prevalence of team based production in terms of the possible existence of social preferences. For sufficiently inequity-averse principal the incentive for team production remains the same across short-term and long-term relationships. |
| Keywords: | Social Preferences; Inequity Aversion; Individual Production; Team Production; Synergy. |
| JEL: | D21 D86 L23 |
| Date: | 2025–08–15 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:125933 |
| By: | Maré, David C. (Motu Economic and Public Policy Research Trust); Fabling, Richard (Independent Researcher) |
| Abstract: | We examine the contribution to ethnic earnings gaps of differences in the firms where different ethnic groups work. We use linked employer-employee data to estimate worker and firm pay premiums (fixed effects), adapting existing methods to deal with multiple-response ethnicities and weighting. The sorting of workers across firms contributes 10-26 percent of within-ethnicity gender gaps but affects average earnings for men or women within ethnic groups by less than 1 percent, in the face of average ethnic earnings gaps of up to 14 percent. We conclude that within-firm earnings differences are the dominant source of ethnic earnings gaps. |
| Keywords: | two-way fixed effects, sorting, ethnicity, earnings, linked employer employee data |
| JEL: | J15 J30 J42 J71 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18206 |
| By: | Taveras, Elisa (The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley); Tonguc, Ozlem (State University of New York); Zhu, Maria (Syracuse University); Miller, Nicola (Binghamton University, New York) |
| Abstract: | This study investigates whether employers in an online hiring experiment exhibit discrimination based on workers’ accents that indicate English is not their primary language. To assess accent bias, we implement a randomized treatment design in which participants acting as employers are assigned to one of two conditions: a treatment where the worker’s accent is revealed (“Accent Revealed”) or a control where it is not (“Accent Blind”). Using incentive-compatible methods, we elicit employers’ beliefs about the productivity of randomly assigned workers, providing brief demographic information and audio clips that either reveal or mask accent characteristics. We evaluate worker productivity in two skills: Mathematics and Verbal reasoning. We find that employers rate accented workers as less capable than their non-accented counterparts in both skills, and this gap persists after providing employers with a signal of a worker’s test score. Employers also display lower willingness to pay, particularly in Verbal skills tasks, even when provided with performance signals. |
| Keywords: | laboratory experiments, labor market discrimination, foreign accent |
| JEL: | C91 D90 J01 J71 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18239 |
| By: | Elliott Ash; Soumitra Shukla; Jason Sockin |
| Abstract: | Interviews allow employers to learn about workers, but do they also enable workers to learn about firms? Studying 500, 000 interview reports from Glassdoor, we find candidates for high-paying jobs are more likely to reject a job offer if they believe the interview was easy. Easy interviews appear to convey poor ``fit'' as those who accept offers after easy interviews are two-fifths of a standard deviation less satisfied with their jobs and 10 percent less likely to remain with their employer for at least one year. Analysis of interview narratives using large language models reveals difficult interviews signal colleague ability whereas easy interviews convey a nonselective process. In a small-scale randomized field experiment, an exogenous increase in difficulty elevated perceived difficulty and boosted applicant engagement with the vacancy. Interviews offer workers a preview of match quality, highlighting a channel through which labor markets may become less efficient if firms automate hiring with AI. |
| Keywords: | interviews, peer effects, job satisfaction, large language models |
| JEL: | J24 M50 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12229 |
| By: | Brüll, Eduard (ZEW); Mäurer, Samuel (University of Mannheim); Rostam-Afschar, Davud (University of Mannheim) |
| Abstract: | We provide experimental evidence on how employers adjust expectations to automation risk in high-skill, white-collar work. Using a randomized information intervention among tax advisors in Germany, we show that firms systematically underestimate automatability. Information provision raises risk perceptions, especially for routine-intensive roles. Yet, it leaves short-run hiring plans unchanged. Instead, updated beliefs increase productivity and financial expectations with minor wage adjustments, implying within-firm inequality like limited rent-sharing. Employers also anticipate new tasks in legal tech, compliance, and AI interaction, and report higher training and adoption intentions. |
| Keywords: | belief updating, firm expectations, technology adoption, innovation, technological change, automation, artificial intelligence, expertise, labor demand, white collar jobs, training |
| JEL: | J23 J24 D22 D84 O33 C93 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18225 |