TY  - JOUR
AU  - Lazear, Edward P
AU  - Shaw, Kathryn L
AU  - Stanton, Christopher T
TI  - Who Gets Hired? The Importance of Finding an Open Slot
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 22202
PY  - 2016
Y2  - April 2016
DO  - 10.3386/w22202
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w22202
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w22202.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Edward P. Lazear
Graduate School of Business
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305
Tel: 650/723-9136
Fax: 650/723-0498
E-Mail: no email, deceased

Kathryn L. Shaw
Graduate School of Business
Stanford University
Stanford, CA  94305-5015
Tel: 650/725-4168
Fax: 650/725-0468
E-Mail: kathryns@stanford.edu

Christopher T. Stanton
210 Rock Center
Harvard University
Harvard Business School
Boston, MA 02163
Tel: 617/495-3795
E-Mail: christopher.t.stanton@gmail.com
M1  - published as Edward P. Lazear, Kathryn L. Shaw, Christopher T. Stanton. "Who Gets Hired? The Importance of Competition among Applicants," in Edward Lazear and Kathryn Shaw, organizers, "Firms and the Distribution of Income: The Roles of Productivity and Luck" Journal of Labor Economics, 36(S1) (2018)

AB  - A model of hiring into posted job slots suggests hiring is based on comparative advantage: being hired depends not only on one’s own skill but also on the skills of other applicants. The model has numerous implications. First, bumping of applicants occurs when one job-seeker is slotted into a lower paying job by another applicant who is more skilled. Second, less able workers are more likely to be unemployed because they are bumped. Third, vacancies are higher for harder to fill skilled jobs. Fourth, some workers are over-qualified for their jobs whereas others are under-qualified. These implications are borne out using four different data sets.
ER  -