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
SAL 1.04, 1st Floor Conference Room, Sir Arthur Lewis Building, LSE, 32 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London WC2A 3PH
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.
Participants are expected to adhere to the CEP Events Code of Conduct.
Directions
This event will take place in SAL 1.04, 1st Floor Conference Room, Sir Arthur Lewis Building, LSE, 32 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London WC2A 3PH.
The building is labelled SAL on the LSE campus map. You can also find us on Google Maps. For further information, go to contact us.This series is part of the CEP's Labour Markets programme.