Conferences at Department of Economics, University of Toronto, Canadian Economic Theory Conference 2009

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Information and Human Capital Management

Heski Bar-Isaac*, Ian Jewitt, Clare Leaver

Date: 2009-05-16 5:30 pm – 6:00 pm
Last modified: 2009-04-17

Abstract


Employees di¤er both in terms of general human capital and fi…rm-speci…c human capital (or match with a particular fi…rm). Current employers typically have access to more information about their employees than rival employers. This information asymmetry affects the distribution of wages, turnover rates, profi…ts, and the extent of allocative inefficiency in the labour market. We begin by exploring the implications of different information structures and highlight that information affects both the extent and distribution of adverse selection. We then suppose that fi…rms can affect the information that they or their rivals observe, thereby endogenizing the extent and nature of asymmetric information between current and rival employers. In particular, we highlight that different information structures that lead to similar adverse selection can differ in their allocative efficiency. Using this observation, we detail how optimal information management policies vary across… firms with different human capital management priorities, and how these decisions affect aggregate labour market outcomes.

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