Doctoral Dissertation Research in Economics: Extracurricular Activities, Information Asymmetry, and Labor Markets

研究发现，精英公司——顶级咨询公司、金融公司和律师事务所——在招聘决策中严重依赖课外活动，而这些活动有利于上流社会的人。这种做法可能会加剧劳动力市场结果的人口差距，因为课外活动的获得和坚持与社会经济背景高度相关。此外，低收入背景的人可能没有意识到这些课外活动对公司的招聘决策很重要。这种意识的缺乏可能会进一步加剧社会经济群体之间的差距：如果弱势学生误解了课外活动的重要性，那么这可能会使他们无法获得优势学生可以获得的高薪工作和更高的薪水。这个项目将运用经济学理论和实验，通过对雇主和参加校园招聘的大学生进行调查和实验，来研究雇主的招聘偏好以及学生对雇主偏好的（错误）理解。这项研究的结果可以丰富美国日益增长的关于高等教育（及其他）精英管理、结构性歧视和未来工作的学术、法律和公共话语。这项研究的结果将为改善劳动力市场运作的政策提供投入，从而促进经济增长，减少收入不平等。本项目旨在回答两个研究问题：雇主如何以及为什么在招聘中使用课外活动？求职者对雇主课外活动依赖的信息不对称的机制和影响是什么？该项目将对校园招聘劳动力市场的需求和供给两方面进行调查和实验，包括雇主和大三/大四学生。为了解决第一个问题，该项目将通过详细的激励简历评级来研究雇主的偏好，特别是对不同成本、时间投入和个性特征的课外活动的偏好。本项目还将进行信息干预实验，以检验雇主是否利用课外活动来提取有关申请人未观察到的生产力的信息。第二个问题将通过对学生进行假设的激励简历评级练习来解决，并将结果与雇主陈述的偏好进行比较，以测试雇主和学生的信念是否一致，如果不一致，是否会因学生的社会经济特征，时间使用和同伴群体网络而变化。该项目将收集学生获得的工作机会和工资数据，以检验信息不对称的人口差异是否可以解释劳动力市场结果中群体层面的差异。这项研究的结果将为政策提供投入，以改善政策，改善劳动力市场的运作，从而促进经济增长，减少收入不平等。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Studies find that elite firms—top consulting, finance, and law firms—heavily rely on extracurricular activities in hiring decisions, activities that favor upper-class people. This practice may worsen demographic gaps in labor market outcomes because access to, and persistence in, extracurricular activities is highly correlated with socioeconomic background. In addition, people from low-income backgrounds may not be aware that these extracurricular activities are important in firms’ hiring decisions. This lack of awareness may further exacerbate disparities across socioeconomic groups: if disadvantaged students misunderstand the importance of extracurricular activities, then this may keep them from high paying jobs and higher salaries to which advantaged students have access. This project will use economic theory and experiments to study employer hiring preferences as well as students’ (mis)understanding of employer preferences by conducting surveys and experiments on employers and college students participating in on-campus recruiting. The results of the study can enrich the growing academic, legal, and public discourse in the US about meritocracy in higher education (and beyond), structural discrimination, and the future of work. The results of this research will provide inputs into policies to improve the functioning of labor markets, and thus foster economic growth and reduce earnings inequality.This project seeks to answer two research questions: How and why do employers use extracurricular activities in hiring? What are the mechanisms and impacts of information asymmetry among job seekers about employers’ reliance on extracurriculars? The project will conduct surveys and experiments on both the demand and supply sides of on-campus recruiting labor markets, including employers and junior/senior college students. To address the first question, the project will elicit employer preferences using a detailed Incentivized Resume Rating exercise to study what employers value, particularly, preferences over extracurricular activities with varying costs, time investment, and personality traits. This project will also conduct an information intervention experiment to examine whether employers use extracurriculars to extract information about the unobserved productivity of applicants. The second question will be addressed by conducting a hypothetical Incentivized Resume Rating exercise on students and compare the results with the stated preferences of employers to test whether employers’ and students’ beliefs are aligned, and if not, whether this varies by students’ socioeconomic characteristics, time-use, and peer group networks. The project will gather data on job offers and salaries that students obtained to examine whether demographic differences in the degree to which information asymmetry can explain group-level disparities in labor market outcomes. The results of this research will provide inputs into policies to improve policies to improve the functioning of labor markets, and thus foster economic growth and reduce earnings inequality.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.