Information Asymmetry in the Scientific Labor Market: The Role of Relational Links

Pierre Boutros, Michele Pezzoni, Lionel Nesta and Sonia Paty
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Pierre Boutros: Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS, GREDEG, France
Michele Pezzoni: Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS, GREDEG, France
Lionel Nesta: Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS, GREDEG, France
Sonia Paty: Université Lumière Lyon 2, CNRS, Université Jean Monnet Saint-Etienne, emlyon business school, GATE (UMR 5824), Lyon, France

No 2026-14, GREDEG Working Papers from Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France

Abstract: This paper investigates the factors predicting the destination choice of mobile researchers. To do so, we use a unique dataset on researchers’ mobility between labs within the largest French public research organization from 2012 to 2022. We find that relational links, namely citation and co-authorship links between mobile researchers and destination lab members, are among the strongest predictors of researchers’ destination choices. Specifically, a citation link prior to mobility between a researcher and a lab is associated with a 3.7 percentage-point higher probability that the researcher chooses that lab as a destination, while a co-authorship link is associated with a 9.8 percentage-point higher probability. We argue that citation and co-authorship links are highly relevant because they serve as information channels to help address substantial information asymmetry between researchers and potential destination labs before mobility. We further find that citation links are better predictors of destination choice when the cognitive distance between the researcher and the lab is high, whereas co-authorship plays a stronger role when the cognitive distance is low. Finally, we find that other lab characteristics, such as the size, productivity, and funding availability, are less relevant to the destination choice.

Keywords: Mobile researchers; Internal labor markets; Information asymmetry; Destination choice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D83 J24 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 48 pages
Date: 2026-05
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