Can Social Information Affect What Job You Choose and Keep?

Lucas Coffman, Clayton Featherstone and Judd B. Kessler

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2017, vol. 9, issue 1, 96-117

Abstract: We show that the provision of social information influences a high-stakes decision and this influence persists over time. In a field experiment involving thousands of admits to Teach For America, those told about the previous year's matriculation rate are more likely to accept a teaching job, complete training, start, and return a second year. To show robustness, we develop a simple theory that identifies subgroups where we expect larger treatment effects and find our effect is larger in those subgroups. That social information can have a powerful, persistent effect on high-stakes behavior broadens its relevance for policy and theory.

JEL-codes: D83 I21 J22 J45 L31 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
Note: DOI: 10.1257/app.20140468
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (29)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/app.20140468 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrie ... l5rP7zLv0IkFsWScNOc4 (application/zip)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrie ... 1Bbw-AjNVRnqktnrdDN4 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrie ... C0Wmf95rYAOTRx0xFqHM (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aejapp:v:9:y:2017:i:1:p:96-117

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics is currently edited by Alexandre Mas

More articles in American Economic Journal: Applied Economics from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().