Information, Mobile Communication, and Referral Effects

Panle Barwick (), Yanyan Liu (), Eleonora Patacchini and Qi Wu

No 25873, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We use the universe of de-identified and geocoded cellphone records for 1.8 million individuals from a major Chinese telecommunication provider to examine the role of information exchange in urban labor markets. Information flow, as measured by call volume, correlates strongly with worker flows at different levels of geographic aggregation. Having a referral in a location increases by close to four times the likelihood that a job switcher moves there. Different from the communication pattern between nonreferral pairs, communication between referral pairs exhibits a distinct inverted-U shape that peaks prior to the job switch. Compared with our referral measure, the commonly-used social network proxies deliver a lower bound estimate of the referral effect. We supplement the phone records with administrative data on firm attributes and auxiliary data on job postings and residential housing prices. Referred jobs are associated with higher monetary gains, a higher likelihood to transition from part time to full time, reduced commuting time, and a higher probability of entering desirable jobs. Referral information is more valuable for young workers, people switching jobs from suburbs to the inner city, and those changing their industrial sectors. Firms receiving referred workers are associated with more successful recruits, higher matching rates and faster growth.

JEL-codes: J60 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab, nep-pay and nep-ure
Note: LS
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Published as Panle Jia Barwick & Yanyan Liu & Eleonora Patacchini & Qi Wu, 2023. "Information, Mobile Communication, and Referral Effects," American Economic Review, vol 113(5), pages 1170-1207.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w25873.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Information, Mobile Communication, and Referral Effects (2023)
Working Paper: Information, Mobile Communication, and Referral Effects (2019)
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:nbr:nberwo:25873

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w25873

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().