Review of Economic Studies Vol. 91 No. 3 2024
Vacancy Durations and Entry Wages: Evidence from Linked Vacancy–Employer–Employee Data
Abstract
This article explores the relationship between the duration of a vacancy and the starting wage of a new job, using linked data on vacancies, the posting establishments, and the workers eventually filling the vacancies. The unique combination of large-scale, administrative worker, establishment, and vacancy data is critical for separating establishment- and job-level determinants of vacancy duration from worker-level heterogeneity. Conditional on observables, we find that vacancy duration is negatively correlated with the starting wage and its establishment component, with precisely estimated elasticities of −0.07 and −0.21, respectively. While the negative relationship is qualitatively consistent with search-theoretic models where firms use the wage as a recruiting device, these elasticities are small, suggesting that firms’ wage policies can account only for a small fraction of the variation in vacancy filling across establishments.
- DOI
- 10.1093/restud/rdad051
- Volume
- 91
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 1807-1841
- Language
- en
- Sources
- bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref