Doctoral Dissertation Research in Economics: Worth the Effort: Measuring and Predicting Investment in a Costly Application Process

经济学博士论文研究：值得付出努力：在昂贵的申请过程中衡量和预测投资

• 批准号: 2215332
• 负责人: Lucas Coffman
• 金额: $ 2.35万
• 依托单位: Boston College
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-08-01 至 2023-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2215332&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Economics; Worth

Before firms can hire workers from a pool of applicants, they must attract the right candidates to apply for the job in the first place. On the worker’s side, applying for a job takes time and effort, and (in states where this is legal) sometimes even costs money. While these costs are guaranteed, the desired outcome of an application (a job offer) is usually not; so workers must weigh the real, present cost against the expected future benefit of applying. This project frames applying for a job as a type of investment, and studies how the factors that influence a person’s investment decisions -- such as their willingness to take risks, or how optimistic they are about future returns -- might also affect the decision to apply for a job. Firms might think they are attracting all the best candidates for the job when they are actually discouraging suitable candidates who think applying is too risky or not worth their time (for reasons that have nothing to do with the candidate’s talents and skills). For example, research shows that women on average are less willing to take risks than men are. This implies that, when the outcome of a job application is uncertain or the likelihood of being selected is low, women would be less likely than men to “invest” in the application process, especially if that process is very costly. This project experimentally tests whether changing the cost of applying for a job affects who decides to apply, and whether factors such as gender, willingness to take risks, and the nature of the job affect the degree to which someone gets discouraged by a high application cost. The data gathered from this project should help firms improve their hiring processes to attract the best candidates and reduce unintentional discrimination. This evidence could also be used in other contexts where applications (and application costs) are common, such as higher education.The primary goal of this project is to study how characteristics ostensibly unrelated to on-the-job productivity affect an individual’s willingness to pay an application cost. The project is designed around an experiment in which participants will face random variation in the cost of applying to complete a task for payment. Multiple types of tasks will be offered to subjects. Some subjects will face only a minimal effort cost to apply, while others will face either a higher effort cost or a monetary cost. Any subjects who apply for a task will be asked to bet on their own likelihood of receiving an offer, in order to elicit their expectations. All subjects, regardless of application decisions, will be surveyed on their skills, their beliefs and tastes, and identity characteristics such as gender. The researchers will use the data gathered on which participants applied for which tasks to estimate a probability model of the decision to apply for a job. This model will incorporate the type of task, the nature and magnitude of the application cost, and observable individual characteristics. A separate group of participants will be asked to review applications and select individuals they see as most likely to succeed in the task(s) they applied for, and then the selected applicants will be contacted to complete the task. This second part of the project is designed to test whether changing the nature of an application cost affects the distribution of applicants or a recruiter’s ability to identify the best candidates for a job. Overall, the project aims to contribute to the job search literature by experimentally testing several explanations for why equally qualified candidates may not sort identically across job opportunities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

在FirmWares可以从申请库中雇用工人之前，他们必须首先吸引合适的候选人才能申请工作。在工人的一边，申请工作需要时间和精力，并且（在这是合法的州）有时甚至花钱。尽管保证了这些成本，但通常不申请的期望结果（工作报价）；因此，工人必须权衡现有的成本与申请预期的未来收益。该项目框架申请工作作为一种投资类型，并研究影响一个人的投资决策的因素（例如他们承担风险的意愿或对未来回报的乐观程度）如何也可能影响申请工作的决定。当他们实际上阻止合适的候选人认为申请太冒险或不值得花时间时，公司可能会认为他们正在吸引所有最好的候选人（出于与候选人的才能和技能无关的原因）。例如，研究表明，女性平均比男性愿意承担风险。这意味着，当工作申请的结果不确定或被选中的可能性很低时，女性在申请过程中“投资”的可能性较小，尤其是在该过程非常昂贵的情况下。该项目通过实验测试是否改变申请工作的成本是否会影响决定申请的人，以及性别，承担风险的意愿以及工作性质等因素是否会影响某人对高申请成本灰心的程度。从该项目收集的数据应有助于公司改善其招聘流程，以吸引最佳候选人并减少无意歧视。该证据也可以在其他情况下使用，例如高等教育（例如高等教育）。该项目的主要目标是研究与在职生产率表面上无关的特征如何影响个人支付申请成本的意愿。该项目围绕一个实验设计，在该实验中，参与者将面临申请成本以完成付款任务的随机变化。主题将提供多种类型的任务。有些受试者只会面临最低限度的申请成本，而另一些受试者将面临更高的努力成本或货币成本。为了提高期望，任何申请任务的受试者都会有可能收到要约的可能性。无论应用决定如何，所有受试者都将对其技能，信念和品味以及性别等身份特征进行调查。研究人员将使用收集的数据申请了哪些任务来估算申请工作的概率模型。该模型将结合任务类型，应用成本的性质和大小以及可观察到的个人特征。将要求一个单独的参与者审查申请并选择他们认为最有可能在申请的任务中取得成功的个人，然后将联系选定的申请以完成任务。该项目的第二部分旨在测试改变应用程序成本的性质是否会影响申请的分布，还是招聘人员确定最佳候选人的能力。总体而言，该项目旨在通过实验测试为什么同样合格的候选人可能不会在工作机会之间进行一些解释，从而为求职文献做出贡献。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是通过基金会的智力优点和更广泛的影响审查标准通过评估来评估的。