Social networks help workers find jobs, but fear of being blamed when a shared job turns out badly may discourage information sharing. We study whether these relational consequences discourage job-information sharing in informal labor markets in India. In a field experiment with 620 daily-wage workers at 32 labor stands in Delhi, we offer workers a one-day paid job organized by our research team and ask them to nominate another worker to hear about the same opportunity, randomizing whether the nominated worker will be told who provided his name. Anonymity increases the probability of nominating another worker by 8.0 percentage points (11%). The effect is larger (14.6 percentage points) among workers who perceive a higher likelihood of problems with the job. Anonymity also increases an index of nominations of workers perceived as able and reliable by 0.215 s.d., without a statistically detectable increase in nominations of close contacts. Descriptive and experimental evidence further supports anticipated relational costs as an explanation. Workers report conflict, demands for compensation, and reduced social and financial exchange following jobs they shared that turned out badly. In a partially incentivized vignette experiment, employer underpayment increases the share of workers willing to give up money to penalize the information source from 11% to 45%, even though the source had no control over payment. These findings show how anticipated relational costs can limit the flow of job information through social networks, potentially reducing their ability to lower search costs for workers and firms.

Development Economics Lunch Workshop, Northwestern University

Female labor force participation is constrained by supply-side frictions, including a lack of qualified female applicants, and demand-side frictions, including biases in hiring decisions. We examine how these distortions interact to affect gender gaps in employment through two experiments conducted in partnership with a firm. The first uses female-directed advertising during a recruitment drive to address supply-side behavioral gender gaps; the second uses a résumé audit study to isolate evaluator biases in hiring. Although the intervention does not affect applicants' objective skills, it unexpectedly reduces female hiring. We find that evaluators place greater weight on noisy signals of soft skills for women than for men, while the recruitment intervention induces lower-ability women to inflate their soft-skill signals. Consequently, evaluators shortlist lower-ability female candidates from treated areas, crowding out higher-ability women. Our estimates suggest that addressing either distorted applicant signals or evaluator bias would close the gender gap in the ability of shortlisted candidates by 51–55%, with only modest additional gains from addressing both.

Northeast Universities Development Consortium (NEUDC) 2025, Advances in Field Experiments 2025, Development Economics Lunch Workshop, Northwestern University

Digital financial technologies can lower transaction costs and expand access to financial services, yet their adoption and productive use remain limited among women entrepreneurs. We examine whether practical information about mobile money and exposure to relatable female entrepreneurs who successfully use it in their businesses can increase adoption and use. We pilot these interventions with 299 female micro-entrepreneurs affiliated with a microfinance institution in Lahore, Pakistan. Client groups were randomly assigned to receive either an informational intervention explaining how to use mobile money, with optional hands-on assistance, or the same intervention supplemented by a role-model video featuring successful female entrepreneurs from the same network. Providing information increased registration of mobile money accounts in women's own names by 15 percentage points, relative to a control-group mean of 21%, and reduced perceived fraud risk. Combining information with a role model increased business-related mobile money use by 11 percentage points and transactions with customers or suppliers by 9 percentage points. These findings suggest that informational barriers constrain initial adoption, while trust and perceived benefits may shape subsequent business use.

PEDL Young Scholars Matchmaking Workshop 2025