Opening the Black Box of the Matching Function: the Power of Words

Ioana Marinescu and Ronald Wolthoff

No 22508, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: How do employers attract the right workers? How important are posted wages vs. other job characteristics? Using data from the leading job board CareerBuilder.com, we show that most vacancies do not post wages, and, for those that do, job titles explain more than 90% of the wage variance. Job titles also explain more than 80% of the across-vacancies variance in the education and experience of applicants. Finally, failing to control for job titles leads to a spurious negative elasticity of labor supply. Thus, our results uncover the previously undocumented power of words in the job matching process.

JEL-codes: J31 J63 J64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (31)

Published as Ioana Marinescu & Ronald Wolthoff, 2020. "Opening the Black Box of the Matching Function: The Power of Words," Journal of Labor Economics, vol 38(2), pages 535-568.

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Related works:
Journal Article: Opening the Black Box of the Matching Function: The Power of Words (2020)
Working Paper: Opening the Black Box of the Matching Function: The Power of Words (2016)
Working Paper: Opening the Black Box of the Matching Function: The Power of Words (2015)
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