Deleting a Signal: Evidence from Pre-employment Credit Checks

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bartik, Alexander W.; Nelson, Scott T.
• 署名单位: University of Illinois System; University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; University of Chicago
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6535
• DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_01406
• 发表日期: 2025-01
• 页码: 152-171
• 关键词: competitive information disclosure; labor-market; unemployment-insurance; DISCRIMINATION; EMPLOYMENT; PERSPECTIVES; duration

摘要

We study the removal of information from a market, such as a job-applicant screening tool. We characterize how removal harms groups with relative advantage in that information: typically those for whom the banned information is most precise relative to alternative signals. We illustrate this using recent bans on employers' use of credit report data. Bans decrease job-finding rates for Black job-seekers by 3 percentage points and increase involuntary separations for Black new hires by 4 percentage points, primarily because other screening tools, such as interviews, have around 60% higher standard deviation of signal noise for Black relative to white job-seekers.