Learning by Hiring

Last registered on October 13, 2025
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Learning by Hiring
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0016873
Initial registration date
October 08, 2025

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
October 13, 2025, 10:38 AM EDT

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

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Navid Neshat
Affiliation
Tulane University
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Yongseok Kim
PI Affiliation
Tulane University
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Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2025-11-01
End date
2026-05-01
Keywords
Firms & Productivity
Additional Keywords
Gender roles, Gender norms, Labor demand, Employer learning, Productivity, Women workers, Employment discrimination, Labor force participation
JEL code(s)
J1, J2
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Despite substantial gender convergence over the past century, women remain underrepresented in the finance industry. This paper examines whether the temporary hiring of women alters employers’ gender-role beliefs in this sector. Partnering with a large online job platform, we match firms seeking interns with applicants through a gender-blind algorithm. Comparing firms randomly matched with a woman versus a man intern, we find that firms matched with a woman subsequently expand their search filters to include women when recruiting employees. The effect is concentrated among firms with no prior history of hiring women and persists for at least one year. These findings indicate that temporary increases in women’s employment can have lasting effects on employer beliefs and demand for women workers, consistent with a learning mechanism.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Kim, Yongseok and Navid Neshat. 2025. "Learning by Hiring." AEA RCT Registry. October 13. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.16873-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The intervention consists of a randomized matching of interns to firms after matching on skills, field of stufy, and location preferences at the city level.
Intervention Start Date
2025-12-01
Intervention End Date
2026-03-01

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
GenderFilter_Exclusion
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
The primary outcome of interest is whether the gender filter in the job platform’s search engine is used to exclude female job candidates.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Perceived_Women_Ability
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)
The secondary outcome is firms’ beliefs about women’s productivity and ability.

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We will use fliers to recruit both firms and individuals interested in participating in the internship program. One flier targets firms in the finance industry seeking interns, asking them to specify the position’s location at the city level, one primary required skill (e.g., data analysis), and the intern’s academic field (e.g., economics). A separate flier targets students and recent graduates in business, finance, economics, or related fields, inviting them to provide basic personal information, academic field, educational background, work experience, one primary skill (e.g., data analysis), and preferred internship location at the city level. The subsequent stages of the experimental design will remain undisclosed until the study concludes.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Randomization is conducted in the office using a computer program.
Randomization Unit
individual (firm–intern pair)
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
1,000 firm–intern pairs
Sample size: planned number of observations
1,000 firm–intern pairs
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
500 treatment firms (matched with a female intern), 500 control firms (matched with a male intern)
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Tulane University IRB
IRB Approval Date
2025-10-02
IRB Approval Number
2025-1061
Analysis Plan