[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tor/tecipa/tecipa-735.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Search, Screening and Sorting

Author

Listed:
  • Xiaoming Cai
  • Pieter Gautier
  • Ronald Wolthoff
Abstract
We investigate the effect of search frictions on labor market sorting by constructing a model which is in line with recent evidence that employers collect a pool of applicants before interviewing a subset of them. In this environment, we derive the necessary and sufficient conditions for sorting in applications as well as in matches. We show that positive sorting is obtained when production complementarities outweigh a force against sorting measured by a (novel) quality-quantity elasticity. Interestingly, we find that the required degree of production complementarity for positive sorting can be increasing in the number of interviews: for sorting to hold for any distribution of workers and firms, it ranges from square-root-supermodularity if each firm can interview a single applicant to log-supermodularity if each firm can interview all its applicants.

Suggested Citation

  • Xiaoming Cai & Pieter Gautier & Ronald Wolthoff, 2022. "Search, Screening and Sorting," Working Papers tecipa-735, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-735
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.economics.utoronto.ca/public/workingPapers/tecipa-735.pdf
    File Function: Main Text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mitchell Hoffman & Lisa B Kahn & Danielle Li, 2018. "Discretion in Hiring," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(2), pages 765-800.
    2. Pieter A. Gautier & Coen N. Teulings, 2015. "Sorting And The Output Loss Due To Search Frictions," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 13(6), pages 1136-1166, December.
    3. Paul Milgrom & Ilya Segal, 2002. "Envelope Theorems for Arbitrary Choice Sets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(2), pages 583-601, March.
    4. Jan Eeckhout & Philipp Kircher, 2011. "Identifying Sorting--In Theory," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 78(3), pages 872-906.
    5. Robert Shimer & Lones Smith, 2000. "Assortative Matching and Search," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(2), pages 343-370, March.
    6. Pieter A. Gautier & Coen N. Teulings, 2006. "How Large are Search Frictions?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(6), pages 1193-1225, December.
    7. David Card & Jörg Heining & Patrick Kline, 2013. "Workplace Heterogeneity and the Rise of West German Wage Inequality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(3), pages 967-1015.
    8. Acemoglu, Daron & Shimer, Robert, 1999. "Holdups and Efficiency with Search Frictions," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 40(4), pages 827-849, November.
    9. Lester, Benjamin & Visschers, Ludo & Wolthoff, Ronald, 2015. "Meeting technologies and optimal trading mechanisms in competitive search markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 1-15.
    10. Galenianos, Manolis & Kircher, Philipp, 2009. "Directed search with multiple job applications," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 445-471, March.
    11. Albrecht, James & Cai, Xiaoming & Gautier, Pieter & Vroman, Susan, 2020. "Multiple applications, competing mechanisms, and market power," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    12. Jeremy Lise & Costas Meghir & Jean-Marc Robin, 2016. "Matching, Sorting and Wages," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 19, pages 63-87, January.
    13. James Albrecht & Pieter A. Gautier & Susan Vroman, 2006. "Equilibrium Directed Search with Multiple Applications," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 73(4), pages 869-891.
    14. Eeckhout, Jan & Kircher, Philipp, 2010. "Sorting versus screening: Search frictions and competing mechanisms," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(4), pages 1354-1385, July.
    15. Cristian Bartolucci & Francesco Devicienti & Ignacio Monzón, 2018. "Identifying Sorting in Practice," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 408-438, October.
    16. Cai, Xiaoming & Gautier, Pieter A. & Wolthoff, Ronald P., 2017. "Search frictions, competing mechanisms and optimal market segmentation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 453-473.
    17. Rafael Lopes de Melo, 2018. "Firm Wage Differentials and Labor Market Sorting: Reconciling Theory and Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(1), pages 313-346.
    18. Jae Song & David J Price & Fatih Guvenen & Nicholas Bloom & Till von Wachter, 2019. "Firming Up Inequality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(1), pages 1-50.
    19. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/78hlmdbud88hhp5vbdddivv2hu is not listed on IDEAS
    20. John M. Abowd & Francis Kramarz & David N. Margolis, 1999. "High Wage Workers and High Wage Firms," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(2), pages 251-334, March.
    21. Rosen, Sherwin, 1974. "Hedonic Prices and Implicit Markets: Product Differentiation in Pure Competition," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(1), pages 34-55, Jan.-Feb..
    22. Philipp Kircher, 2009. "Efficiency of Simultaneous Search," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(5), pages 861-913, October.
    23. Ronald Wolthoff, 2018. "Applications and Interviews: Firms’ Recruiting Decisions in a Frictional Labour Market," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(2), pages 1314-1351.
    24. Marcus Hagedorn & Tzuo Hann Law & Iourii Manovskii, 2017. "Identifying Equilibrium Models of Labor Market Sorting," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 85, pages 29-65, January.
    25. Arnaud Costinot, 2009. "An Elementary Theory of Comparative Advantage," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(4), pages 1165-1192, July.
    26. Jan Eeckhout & Philipp Kircher, 2010. "Sorting and Decentralized Price Competition," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(2), pages 539-574, March.
    27. Moen, Espen R, 1997. "Competitive Search Equilibrium," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(2), pages 385-411, April.
    28. Jeremy Lise & Costas Meghir & Jean-Marc Robin, 2016. "Matching, Sorting, and Wages," SciencePo Working papers hal-03392023, HAL.
    29. Ilse Lindenlaub, 2017. "Sorting Multidimensional Types: Theory and Application," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 84(2), pages 718-789.
    30. Shi, Shouyong, 2001. "Frictional Assignment. I. Efficiency," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 98(2), pages 232-260, June.
    31. Hicks, John, 1970. "Elasticity of Substitution Again: Substitutes and Complements," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 22(3), pages 289-296, November.
    32. Pablo Kurlat, 2016. "Asset Markets With Heterogeneous Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 84, pages 33-85, January.
    33. Robert Shimer, 2005. "The Assignment of Workers to Jobs in an Economy with Coordination Frictions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(5), pages 996-1025, October.
    34. Becker, Gary S, 1973. "A Theory of Marriage: Part I," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(4), pages 813-846, July-Aug..
    35. Shouyong Shi, 2002. "A Directed Search Model of Inequality with Heterogeneous Skills and Skill-Biased Technology," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 69(2), pages 467-491.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Banfi, Stefano & Choi, Sekyu & Villena-Roldán, Benjamín, 2022. "Sorting on-line and on-time," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    2. Horton, John J. & Johari, Ramesh & Kircher, Philipp, 2021. "Cheap Talk Messages for Market Design: Theory and Evidence from a Labor Market with Directed," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2021033, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Benjamin Lochner & Bastian Schulz, 2024. "Firm Productivity, Wages, and Sorting," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(1), pages 85-119.
    2. Banfi, Stefano & Choi, Sekyu & Villena-Roldán, Benjamín, 2022. "Sorting on-line and on-time," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    3. Hector Chade & Jan Eeckhout & Lones Smith, 2017. "Sorting through Search and Matching Models in Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(2), pages 493-544, June.
    4. Cai, Xiaoming & Gautier, Pieter A. & Wolthoff, Ronald P., 2017. "Search frictions, competing mechanisms and optimal market segmentation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 169(C), pages 453-473.
    5. Mangin, Sephorah, 2017. "A theory of production, matching, and distribution," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 376-409.
    6. Auster, Sarah & Gottardi, Piero, 2019. "Competing mechanisms in markets for lemons," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(3), July.
    7. Benjamin Lochner & Bastian Schulz, 2016. "Labor Market Sorting in Germany," CESifo Working Paper Series 6066, CESifo.
    8. Rasmus Lentz & Suphanit Piyapromdee & Jean-Marc Robin, 2022. "The Anatomy of Sorting - Evidence from Danish Data," Working Papers hal-03869383, HAL.
    9. Jan Eeckhout & Philipp Kircher, 2010. "Sorting and Decentralized Price Competition," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 78(2), pages 539-574, March.
    10. Davoodalhosseini, Seyed Mohammadreza, 2019. "Constrained efficiency with adverse selection and directed search," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 568-593.
    11. Kory Kantenga, 2016. "Sorting and Wage Inequality," 2016 Meeting Papers 660, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    12. Ioana Marinescu & Ronald Wolthoff, 2020. "Opening the Black Box of the Matching Function: The Power of Words," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 38(2), pages 535-568.
    13. Cristian Bartolucci & Francesco Devicienti & Ignacio Monzón, 2018. "Identifying Sorting in Practice," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 408-438, October.
    14. Jan Eeckhout & Philipp Kircher, 2011. "The Research Agenda: Jan Eeckhout and Philipp Kircher on Sorting in Macroeconomic Models," EconomicDynamics Newsletter, Review of Economic Dynamics, vol. 13(1), November.
    15. Andreas Gulyas, 2018. "Identifying Labor Market Sorting with Firm Dynamics," 2018 Meeting Papers 856, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    16. Alex Xi He & John Kennes & Daniel le Maire, 2018. "Complementarity and Advantage in the Competing Auctions of Skills," Economics Working Papers 2018-10, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    17. John M. Abowd & Francis Kramarz & Sébastien Pérez-Duarte & Ian M. Schmutte, 2018. "Sorting Between and Within Industries: A Testable Model of Assortative Matching," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 129, pages 1-32.
    18. Jeremy Lise & Costas Meghir & Jean-Marc Robin, 2016. "Matching, Sorting and Wages," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 19, pages 63-87, January.
    19. Sarah Auster & Piero Gottardi & Ronald Wolthoff, 2022. "Simultaneous Search and Adverse Selection," Working Papers tecipa-734, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    20. Pieter A. Gautier & Coen N. Teulings, 2015. "Sorting And The Output Loss Due To Search Frictions," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 13(6), pages 1136-1166, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    sorting; complementarity; search frictions; information frictions; heterogeneity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-735. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: RePEc Maintainer (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.