Job seekers’ beliefs, search behavior, and labor market outcomes: An information experiment

Last registered on February 04, 2025

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Job seekers’ beliefs, search behavior, and labor market outcomes: An information experiment
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0015102
Initial registration date
December 31, 2024

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
January 06, 2025, 12:18 PM EST

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

Last updated
February 04, 2025, 9:57 PM EST

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

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Affiliation
The University of Chicago

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
New York University
PI Affiliation
Università di Bologna

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2025-01-06
End date
2025-06-30
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Job seekers’ beliefs about their reemployment prospects likely influence their reemployment outcomes. Overoptimistic individuals may (or may not) exert low job search effort and set high reservation wages, staying unemployed for longer; while pessimistic ones may (or may not) exert high search effort and low reservation wages, settling for low-quality jobs. In this study we aim to experimentally evaluate the impact of an information intervention that corrects job seekers’ possibly biased beliefs on job search behavior and labor market outcomes. We will estimate both a reduced-form causal effect of our treatment on belief updating and job outcomes, as well as identify an equilibrium search model that enables counterfactual policy experiments. Results will contribute to a better understanding of the role of job seekers’ expectations in amplifying labor market frictions, and will help inform the design of scalable, low-cost active labor market policy interventions to improve reemployment outcomes.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
BRISCESE, GUGLIELMO, Giovanni Topa and Giulio Zanella. 2025. "Job seekers’ beliefs, search behavior, and labor market outcomes: An information experiment ." AEA RCT Registry. February 04. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.15102-2.0
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We will elicit prior and posterior beliefs of job seekers, and a random half of respondents will see a belief-correcting information intervention.
Intervention Start Date
2025-01-07
Intervention End Date
2025-05-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
- Job finding rates at monthly frequency
- Time until employment
- Hourly wage in first job
- Evolution over time of beliefs about likelihood of finding a job and of the reservation wage, across survey waves.
- Comparison of expected reservation wage after 3 months (elicited in wave 1) and actual reservation wage after 3 months (elicited in wave 3).
- Intended job search effort (time that a job seekers plans to allocate to job search)
- Willingness to watch (and share of video watched, a continuous variable) a video that gives tips on how to create a good resume, i.e., engagement with an existing DEWR resource for job seekers.

Primary Outcomes (explanation)
All outcomes will be tracked via existing administrative data and complemented with survey-based data when tracking changes in beliefs about job prospects.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
A random half of job seekers will see a belief-correcting information treatment that provides information, based on historical data, about re-employment rates for job seekers of similar demographic characteristics.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization occurs at the individual job seeker-survey respondent level automatically via Qualtrics embedded randomizer.
Randomization Unit
Individual job seeker level among survey respondents.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
0
Sample size: planned number of observations
The study aims to recruit at least 2000 job seekers in the first survey wave.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Half of the sample will be automatically allocated to treatment.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
See attached pre-analysis plan.
Supporting Documents and Materials

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IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Università di Bologna
IRB Approval Date
2024-02-06
IRB Approval Number
0032016
Analysis Plan

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