CEP/STICERD Applications Seminars
CANCELLED: What's My Employee Worth? The Effects of Salary Benchmarking
Zoe Cullen (Harvard Business School), joint with Shengwu Li (Harvard) and Ricardo Perez-Truglia (Berkeley)
Monday 03 June 2024 12:00 - 13:30
Many of our seminars and public events this year will continue as in person or as hybrid (online and in person) events. Please check our website listings and Twitter feed @STICERD_LSE for updates.
Unless otherwise specified, in-person seminars are open to the public. Please ensure you have informed the event contact as early as possible.
Those unable to join the seminars in-person are welcome to participate via zoom if the event is hybrid.
About this event
Firms are allowed to use aggregate data on market salaries to set pay, a practice known as salary benchmarking. Using national payroll data, we study firms that gain access to a tool that reveals market benchmarks for each job title. Using a difference-indifferences design, we find that the benchmark information reduces salary dispersion by 25%. Thus, salary dispersion must stem partly from aggregate uncertainty about the salaries offered by other firms. Our model formalizes how salary dispersion can arise even in competitive labor markets for identical workers when such uncertainty exists, and we discuss implications for an ongoing policy debate.
Applications (Applied Micro) Seminars are held on Mondays in term time at 12:00-13:30 in SAL 3.05 in person.
Seminar organiser: Katie Smith
For further information please contact Sadia Ali: s.ali43@lse.ac.uk.
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