In the second half of the paper, we develop a model with a new mechanism to explain firms’ lack of wage posting. Firms do not include pay information as bargaining offers an insurance mechanism against not being able to hire profitably at the posted pay.

Why? Not because they don’t know which skills firms want. Rather, because job seekers in this context and other contexts have limited information about their own skills (two of my working papers provide evidence on this in Ethiopia and South Africa: docs.iza.org/dp17761.pdf, tinyurl.com/3wsydrv6).

2. Pay information does not increase sorting by skills as high wage salaries do not receive higher-quality applicants. So firms’ worries about under-qualified applicants do not bear out. However, there is also no positive assortative matching of applicants and vacancies.

1. Pay information increase the wage elasticity of application numbers. That is, relatively high-wage postings attract more applicants, while low-wage postings attract fewer. . ➡️ Job seekers use pay information to decide where to direct their applications.

We recruit a diverse set of 314 firms with a total of 447 vacancies who agree for us to randomize whether they job adverts include salary information. We then track all applications and screen applicants before forwarding applications to our partner firms. Key findings below:

This project was motivated by a stark fact: only !4%! of job adverts in Addis Ababa had any information about the provided pay. We ask firms why: 68% say want to avoid attracting under-qualified applicants and 41% want to negotiate salaries. Can we support this empirically?

🚨🚨New WP Alert (tinyurl.com/4sesthst)%F0...
@marcjosefwitte.bsky.social , @balgovamaria.bsky.social , Tsegay Tekleselassie, and I have a new working paper using a field experiment to study the causal impact of pay information in job adverts on application numbers and applicant skills. A🧵

Research output after tenure drops off a cliff for business, economics, sociology, and other non-lab fields.

But it remains high post-tenure in lab-based fields such as chemistry, physics, computer science, and engineering.
www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10....

Never ask a man his age, a woman her salary, or GPT-5 whether a seahorse emoji exists

My 10-years old son is walking home from school alone for the first time. Kidnappers, drug dealers, strangers? Not worried. Other parents driving SUVs is what I am terrified of.

Submission deadline for this PEDL young scholars workshop (to take place the day before the Oct 24-25 @theigc.bsky.social/@yaleegc.bsky.social ‬Firms/Trade/Development conference) is Sept 7 (soon!). For researchers post-PhD but untenured (or <=8 years out). Hope to see many of you there.

From June 2025 -

Political Activists are Not Driven by Instrumental Motives: Evidence from Two Natural Field Experiments - cup.org/4kfEt2h

- @anselmhager.bsky.social, @lukashenselecon.bsky.social, Johannes Hermle & Christopher Roth

#OpenAccess

This is a great opportunity for any researcher based in Africa. Please share widely.

Read our VoxDev piece on how telling jobseekers about their comparative advantage in skills shapes their search decisions and earnings. The underlying paper just received an R&R at AEJ:Applied and an updated version will come out in a couple of months.

Fascinating post about a new painkiller that targets a specific sodium channel in the damaged tissue (rather than the brain). Wouldn't it be amazing if we eventually could treat pain without the risk of addiction?

@wzb.bsky.social is searching for new director for the study of democracy

These are extraordinary senior positions; tenured wth funding to establish a new dept & pursue big agendas

www.wzb.eu/en/jobs/dire...

🚨Please share widely!

#Polisky @epssnet.bsky.social
@ecpr.bsky.social @apsa.bsky.social

I am so happy that this is finally out! It was long process, but it feels great to also get null results published! Thank you to all the editors and referees involved.

🚨🚨 Vacancy alert 🚨🚨

Are you interested in doing a PhD 🎓🎓 in Economics 📈?

Then join us @tilburg-university.bsky.social! We have a vacancy for a PhD student in our department. Check it out here: tiu.nu/22836

Thanks for the reminder @janemunday.bsky.social. Every summer, I repost this article DROWNING DOES NOT LOOK LIKE DROWNING. To date, I know of FOUR kids who were saved after someone who'd clicked on the link learnt how to spot actual drowning. Take time to read and pass on.

slate.com/technology/2...

We are hiring! We are seeking expressions of interest for appointment as Full Professor in the Department of Economics at Monash University. DM me if you have questions.

econjobmarket.org/positions/11...

🚨 JOB ALERT 🚨 2 exciting PreDoc positions in my team at the University of Bern, starting late summer/early fall! Collaborate on cutting-edge research in Political Economy, Development &Behavioral Economics, using experimental and quasi-experimental methods.

Huge congratulations to @justsand.bsky.social and to Open Philanthropy. The perfect person for a historic challenge

🚨 We're hiring! Join us at @LMU_Muenchen for the DFG-funded project "Democratic Persuasion: How to Make the Case for Democracy."

Interested in making scholarly & societal impact?

We’re looking for:
🔹 1 Postdoc (100%)
🔹 1 PhD researcher (70%)
Starting: Oct 2025 | Apply by: July 8
More info ⬇️ (1/7)