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Title: US Salary History Bans Strategic Disclosure by Job Applicants and the Gender Pay Gap

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2022

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Abstract: I study the effects of US salary history bans which restrict employers from inquiring about job ap-plicants' pay history during the hiring process, but allow candidates to voluntarily share information. Using a difference-indifferences design, I show that these policies narrowed the gender pay gap significantly by 2 p.p., driven almost entirely by an increase in female earnings. The bans were also successful in weakening the auto-correlation between current and future earnings, especially among job-changers. I provide novel evidence 1 showing that when employers could no longer nudge candidates for information , the likelihood of voluntarily disclosing salary history decreased among job applicants and by 2 p.p. more among women. I then develop a salary negotiation model with asymmetric information, where I allow job applicants to choose whether to reveal pay history, and use this framework to explain my empirical findings on disclosure behavior and gender pay gap.

Url: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2202.03602.pdf

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Authors: Sinha, Sourav

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Data Collections: IPUMS CPS

Topics: Gender, Labor Force and Occupational Structure

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