Job fairs : matching firms and workers in a field experiment in Ethiopia

Research output: Working paperResearch

  • Girum Abebe
  • Stefano Caria
  • Marcel Fafchamps
  • Falco, Paolo
  • Simon Franklin
  • Simon Redmond Quinn
  • Forhad J. Shilpi
Do matching frictions affect youth employment in developing countries? This paper studies a randomized controlled trial of job fairs in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The job fairs match firms with a representative sample of young, educated job-seekers. The meetings at the fairs create very few jobs: one for approximately 10 firms that attended. The paper explores reasons for this, and finds significant evidence for mismatched expectations: about wages, about firms'requirements, and the average quality of job-seekers. There is evidence of learning and updating of beliefs in the aftermath of the fair. This changes behavior: both workers and firms invest more in formal job search after the fairs.
Original languageUndefined/Unknown
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jun 2017

ID: 336469635