Abstract
I study the role of financial incentives as signals of job characteristics when these are unknown to potential applicants. To this end, I create experimental variation in expected earnings and use that to estimate the effect of financial incentives on candidates' perception of a brand-new health-promoter position in Uganda and on the resulting size and composition of the applicant pool. I find that more lucrative positions are perceived as entailing a lower positive externality for the community and discourage agents with strong pro-social preferences from applying. While higher financial incentives attract more applicants and increase the probability of filling a vacancy, the signal they convey reduces the ability to recruit the most socially motivated agents, who are found to stay longer on the job and to perform better.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 277-317 |
Number of pages | 41 |
Journal | American Economic Journal: Applied Economics |
Volume | 11 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2019 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Economics, Econometrics and Finance(all)
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Replication data for: Financial Incentives as Signals: Experimental Evidence from the Recruitment of Village Promoters in Uganda
Deserranno, E. (Creator), ICPSR - Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research, 2019
DOI: 10.3886/e113735v1, https://www.openicpsr.org/openicpsr/project/113735/version/V1/view
Dataset