Job Flexibility and Employer/Employee Behavior

Last registered on April 29, 2020

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Job Flexibility and Employer/Employee Behavior
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0003927
Initial registration date
March 16, 2019

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
March 23, 2019, 8:04 PM EDT

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

Last updated
April 29, 2020, 2:51 PM EDT

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

Locations

Primary Investigator

Affiliation

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation
Harvard Business School

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2019-03-10
End date
2022-04-30
Secondary IDs
Abstract
We will be testing the effects of an explicit opportunity to advertise a job's flexibility on employer and employee behavior.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Liu, Heidi and Michael Luca. 2020. "Job Flexibility and Employer/Employee Behavior." AEA RCT Registry. April 29. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.3927-1.1
Former Citation
Liu, Heidi and Michael Luca. 2020. "Job Flexibility and Employer/Employee Behavior." AEA RCT Registry. April 29. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/3927/history/67227
Sponsors & Partners

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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
We vary whether employers face an explicit opportunity to advertise whether a job they offer is flexible or not.
Intervention Start Date
2019-03-18
Intervention End Date
2021-04-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Take up rate and estimated proportion of job ads with flexible working options
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Log quantity of applicants to a job in a week
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We vary whether employers face an explicit opportunity to advertise whether a job they offer is flexible or not.
Experimental Design Details
Employers will be randomized to one of two conditions when they create a new job advertisement on the company’s platform: the control condition and the treatment condition. In the control condition, employers will create new job advertisements as usual. In the treatment condition, employers will see an extra webpage prompting employers to provide information on the potential job flexibility.
Randomization Method
Employee order of new ads (conducted by the company)
Randomization Unit
Employers
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
45,000 employers
Sample size: planned number of observations
100,000 advertisements
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
50,000 control; 50,000 flexibility prompt
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Assuming significance of .05, power of .8, baseline rate of 20% flexible ads, and 100,000 employer ads, the effect size would be 1.0pp (SD=.03) if ICC=.9, 1.0pp (SD=.02) if ICC=.5, or .8pp (SD=.02) if ICC=.1.
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Harvard University Committee on the Use of Human Subjects
IRB Approval Date
2019-03-10
IRB Approval Number
IRB19-0381 (note: deemed exempt since we will not be looking at PII)
Analysis Plan

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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