American Economic Review Vol. 113 No. 5 2023

Information, Mobile Communication, and Referral Effects

Panle Jia Barwick¹; Yanyan Liu²; Eleonora Patacchini³; Qi Wu⁴

¹ Department of Economics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and NBER (email: ) · ² International Food Policy Research Institute and Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, Cornell University (email: ) · ³ Department of Economics, Cornell University and CEPR, EIEF, IZA (email: ) · ⁴ Department of Applied Economics, Guanghua School of Management, Peking University (email: )

Abstract

This paper uses the universe of cellphone records from a Chinese telecommunication provider for a northern Chinese city to examine the role of information exchange in urban labor markets. We provide the first direct evidence of increased communication among referral pairs around job changes. Information provided by social contacts mitigates information asymmetry and improves labor market performance.

DOI

10.1257/aer.20200187

Volume

113

Issue

5

Pages

1170-1207

Language

en

Sources

bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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