TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Brown, Meta
AU  - Setren, Elizabeth
AU  - Topa, Giorgio
        TI  - Do Informal Referrals Lead to Better Matches? Evidence from a Firm's Employee Referral System
        PY  - 2014/May/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 8175
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp8175
        AB  - Using a new firm-level dataset that includes explicit information on referrals by current employees, we investigate the hiring process and the relationships among referrals, match quality, wage trajectories and turnover for a single U.S. corporation, and test various predictions of theoretical models of labor market referrals. We find that referred candidates are more likely to be hired; experience an initial wage advantage which dissipates over time; and have longer tenure in the firm. Further, the variances of the referred and non-referred wage distributions converge over time. The observed referral effects appear to be stronger at lower skill levels. The data also permit analysis of the role of referrer-referee pair characteristics.
        KW  - turnover
KW  - human resources
KW  - referrals
KW  - wage trajectory
        ER  -