主题：How Many Others Apply for the Jobs I Am Applying for? The Effect of Perceived Labor Market Competition on Job Search
报告时间：2023年9月21日下午1:30
线下地点：文化中心305
主办单位：浙江财经大学经济学院 浙江省哲学社会科学A类重点研究基地“经济行为与决策研究中心”
Abstract：
Job seekers’ expectations about labor market prospects are crucial in determining their search behavior and outcomes in search models, yet clear empirical evidence is lacking. We conduct a large-scale information-provision experiment on a job board to analyze the causal impact of beliefs about labor market competition on job search. We vary whether information about last month’s applications per vacancy in the job seeker’s preferred occupation is provided and whether a personal daily application goal is elicited. We document that job seekers have large misperceptions about competition. Being provided with information, job seekers update their beliefs about the upcoming month’s competition in a way that is consistent with Bayesian updating. While we find that the intended search effort (goal) increases in beliefs, neither job seekers’ real effort nor their tendency to switch to other, non-preferred occupations is affected by those beliefs. In contrast to the prediction from a sequential search model, we find that both the lowest wage offered (reservation wage) and the lowest required work experience among the jobs job seekers apply for in the month after the intervention increase in their beliefs. This surprising behavioral response is driven by currently employed job seekers, and can be rationalized by gambling for higher-quality jobs when landing a job becomes more difficult. For the unemployed, the reservation wage and lowest experience are rigid. We further show that neither this seemingly risky adjustment nor the rigidity affects their job-matching outcomes negatively.
嘉宾简介：
何浩然，瑞典哥德堡大学经济学博士，北京师范大学京师特聘教授，国家“万人计划”青年拔尖人才项目入选者，国家一级运动员。主要研究领域为行为经济学、实验经济学、劳动力市场、亲社会行为、团队决策、公共政策评估。近年来在Economic Journal、Journal of Labor Economics、Experimental Economics、Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization、Social Choice and Welfare、Journal of Economic Psychology、Economics Letters、China Economic Review、《管理世界》、《经济学（季刊）》、《世界经济》等期刊上发表多篇论文。
