Hardy, M., Kim, S., McCasland, J., Menzel, A. and Witte, M. (2024). Allocating labor across small firms: Experimental evidence on information constraints Journal of Development Economics, 171:1--9.
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Affiliated author
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Publication year2024
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JournalJournal of Development Economics
We document interest in labor reallocation among small firm owners in Ghana; 60% and 41%, respectively, self-report willingness to hire or work for the average local firm owner. Firm owners also exhibit high willingness-to-pay for information on a random subset of hiring firms and jobseeking firm owners during a Becker–Degroot–Marschak exercise. Conditionally random variation in access to this information generates immediate labor adjustments within and between firms, though rarely of firm owners themselves, and impacts firm closure 5-months post-intervention. Our findings suggest that labor market information of this kind is both valuable and actionable in our context.