Impact of Information Provision of Job Preferences on Placement Outcomes in Low-skilled Labor Markets

Last registered on April 16, 2017

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Impact of Information Provision of Job Preferences on Placement Outcomes in Low-skilled Labor Markets
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0001835
Initial registration date
December 17, 2016

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
December 17, 2016, 3:58 PM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated
April 16, 2017, 3:10 PM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Region
Region

Primary Investigator

Affiliation
University of Virginia

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
Ford Foundation Professor of Economics,Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Additional Trial Information

Status
On going
Start date
2015-09-01
End date
2017-12-31
Secondary IDs
Abstract
India is investing heavily in initiating skill development programs to mitigate the growing skills gap and prepare its youth with skills needed for the employment industry. However, the experience in the low-skilled sector so far has been riddled with low take up of training programs and high attrition in subsequent job placements. More generally, little is known about how job seekers in low skilled occupations weigh trade offs across job characteristics, which could be crucial in understanding their job search, tenure and job switches. This pilot study proposes to use placements after a vocational training program to do three things: (i) elicit unbiased preferences of trainees over various job characteristics and examine the consistency of these stated preferences with actual job choices; (ii) examine the knowledge and utilization of information on trainee’s preferences by trainers (placement officers) during job placement to improve the quality of placements; (iii) examine the employment choices and labor market activities of trainees after the completion of the training program through follow up surveys.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Banerjee, Abhijit and Gaurav Chiplunkar. 2017. "Impact of Information Provision of Job Preferences on Placement Outcomes in Low-skilled Labor Markets." AEA RCT Registry. April 16. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.1835-2.0
Former Citation
Banerjee, Abhijit and Gaurav Chiplunkar. 2017. "Impact of Information Provision of Job Preferences on Placement Outcomes in Low-skilled Labor Markets." AEA RCT Registry. April 16. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/1835/history/16612
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
This project consists of two interventions with trainers and trainees in a vocational training program to elicit unbiased preferences of trainees over a set of job characteristics and the knowledge and use of these preferences by trainers during placements after the training program.

The first intervention revolves around eliciting unbiased preferences of trainees over job characteristics and by varying the incentives to reveal them, testing if trainees are strategic in revealing their preferences when asked to. The second intervention involves examining if there is an asymmetry of information about these preferences between trainees and their trainers (placement officers), which could lead to inefficient placement outcomes.
Intervention Start Date
2015-09-01
Intervention End Date
2016-06-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Compensating differentials in wage for changes in non-wage job characteristics, recruitment and placement outcomes like interviews, offers, wages, tenure etc.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Compensating differentials will be calculated using the ranking over jobs and job characteristics, as provided by trainees.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
The experimental design for the two interventions is as follows:

For the first intervention, a job-list is generated based on pre-determined job characteristics that trainees (in the baseline survey) report are important to them, namely: salary, location, social security and designation. A job-list of 11 jobs is generated (using real jobs) by varying the above four job characteristics. Trainees are then asked to rank the jobs in this list in order of preference. To examine whether trainees are strategic in revealing true preferences, trainees in every batch are randomly into two groups and the salience of the job list is varied between the two groups. Both groups are asked to rank jobs in the same list, but one group is told that their rankings would completely determine their placement process in terms of the interviews they would get and the other group is told that their rankings on the list are merely for our research purposes.

For the second intervention, we present the trainer (who is also the placement officer) with the same list of jobs that is given to the trainees and ask the trainer, for every student, to recommend the top three jobs from the list that would be a good fit for the trainees. We can then compare the trainee’s preferences (elicited before) with that of the trainer to understand how well trainers know the preferences of the trainees. Furthermore, to reduce information asymmetry, we propose a randomized experiment where for half the trainees in a batch, trainers would receive information on the four most-preferred jobs of the trainees as captured through their job-rankings. A comparison of the placement outcomes between these trainees would then help us to examine the importance of this information in making the placement process more efficient and matching trainees to jobs they prefer.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization done in the office by a computer
Randomization Unit
Individual level randomization, stratifying by training batch and by gender within the batch.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
The randomization is at the individual level
Sample size: planned number of observations
600 training students
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Within every training batch in a centre, trainees (stratified by gender) for the first intervention are allocated to the high or low incentive groups. For the second intervention, within every training batch in a centre, information on preferences for half the batch is provided to the placement officer (trainer).
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
0.25 standard deviations or a 14% increase in the preference (as measured through the job ranking) for a job during placement.
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Institute for Financial Management and Research
IRB Approval Date
2016-04-29
IRB Approval Number
IRB00007107; FWA00014616; IORG0005894
IRB Name
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
IRB Approval Date
2014-06-02
IRB Approval Number
1405006413

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials