How Do Employers Use Compensation History? Evidence from a Field Experiment
Name
709277.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
820.23 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
df519b4d6b2dff93ae306ad807965298
Author(s)
Horton, John J.
Date Issued
October 2020
Journal
Journal of Labor Economics
Publisher
University of Chicago Press
Citation
Barach, Moshe A. and John J. Horton. “How Do Employers Use Compensation History? Evidence from a Field Experiment.” Journal of Labor Economics, 39, 1 (October 2020) © 2020 The Author(s)
Version
Final published version
Abstract
We report the results of a field experiment in which treated employers could not observe the compensation history of their job applicants. Treated employers responded by evaluating more applicants and evaluating those applicants more intensively. They also responded by changing what kind of workers they evaluated: treated employers evaluated workers with 5% lower past average wages and hired workers with 13% lower past average wages. Conditional on bargaining, workers hired by treated employers struck better wage bargains for themselves.
MIT Department
Sloan School of Management
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1086/709277
