Job Fairs Matching Firms and Workers in a Field Experiment in Ethiopia

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 fo...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Abebe, Girum
Other Authors: Shilpi, Forhad, Fafchamps, Marcel
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Washington, D.C The World Bank 2017
Series:World Bank E-Library Archive
Online Access:
Collection: World Bank E-Library Archive - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
Description
Summary: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
Physical Description:55 p