How Do Employers Use Compensation History?: Evidence From a Field Experiment

Moshe A. Barach and John Horton

No 26627, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

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 upon bargaining, workers hired by treated employers struck better wage bargains for themselves.

JEL-codes: J0 J23 J48 J7 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-hrm and nep-lma
Note: LS
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published as Moshe A. Barach & John J. Horton, 2021. "How Do Employers Use Compensation History? Evidence from a Field Experiment," Journal of Labor Economics, vol 39(1), pages 193-218.

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Working Paper: How Do Employers Use Compensation History?: Evidence from a Field Experiment (2017)
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