TY - JOUR
AU - Niederle, Muriel
AU - Roth, Alvin E
TI - The Effects of a Centralized Clearinghouse on Job Placement, Wages, and Hiring Practices
JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL - No. 13529
PY - 2007
Y2 - October 2007
DO - 10.3386/w13529
UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13529
L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13529.pdf
N1 - Author contact info:
Muriel Niederle
Department of Economics
579 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305-6072
Tel: 650/723-7359
Fax: 650/725-5702
E-Mail: niederle@stanford.edu
Alvin E. Roth
Department of Economics
Stanford University
579 Serra Mall
Stanford, CA 94305
Tel: 650/725-9147
E-Mail: alroth@stanford.edu
M1 - published as Muriel Niederle, Alvin E. Roth. "The Effects of a Centralized Clearinghouse on Job Placement, Wages, and Hiring Practices," in David H. Autor, editor, "Studies of Labor Market Intermediation " University of Chicago Press (2009)
M3 - presented at "Labor Market Intermediation Conf.", May 17-18, 2007
AB - New gastroenterologists participated in a labor market clearinghouse (a "match") from 1986 through the late 1990's, after which the match was abandoned. This provides an opportunity to study the effects of a match, by observing the differences in the outcomes and organization of the market when a match was operating, and when it was not.
After the GI match ended, the market unraveled. Contracts were signed earlier each year, at diffuse times, often with exploding offers. The market became less national, more local. This allows us to discern the effect of the clearinghouse: it coordinated the timing of the market, in a way that increased its thickness and scope. The clearinghouse does not seem to have had an effect on wages.
As this became known among gastroenterologists, an opportunity arose to reorganize the market to once again use a centralized clearinghouse. However it proved necessary to adopt policies that would allow employers to safely delay hiring and coordinate on using the clearinghouse.
The market for gastroenterologists provides a case study of market failures, the way a centralized clearinghouse can fix them, and the effects on market outcomes. In the conclusion we discuss aspects of the experience of the gastroenterology labor market that seem to generalize fairly widely.
ER -