Information Frictions and Employee Sorting between Start-ups

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bryan, Kevin A.; Hoffman, Mitchell; Sariri, Amir
• 署名单位: University of Toronto; University of California System; University of California Santa Barbara; National Bureau of Economic Research; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK; Purdue University System; Purdue University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.20240722
• 发表日期: 2026
• 关键词: human-resource management; job search; FIRMS; PRODUCTIVITY; incentives; INVESTMENT; advantage

摘要

Would workers apply to better firms if they were more informed about firm quality? Collaborating with 26 science-based start-ups, we create a custom job board and invite business school alumni to apply. The job board randomizes across applicants to show coarse expert ratings of all start-ups' science and/or business model quality. Making ratings visible strongly reallocates applications toward higher-rated firms. This reallocation holds, restricting to high-quality workers. Treatments operate in part by shifting worker beliefs about firms' right-tail outcomes. Despite these benefits, workers make posttreatment bets indicating highly overoptimistic beliefs about start-up success, suggesting a problem of broader informational deficits. (JEL D22, D83, J22, J23, J24, M13, M51)