International Employer Experience Premium
RCTClinical Trial
The economic payoff of prior employment experience is often assumed to be uniform, ignoring how the institutional prestige and reputation of prior employers moderate signaling value in low-income labor markets.
Picture this
Having prior work experience with an international organization acts like a stamp of quality on a passport, reassuring future local employers that the candidate meets high organizational standards and deserves higher wage offers.
What the evidence says
The wage returns from acquiring short-term work experience were significantly magnified for candidates with prior international employer experience, yielding an interaction coefficient of 1.731 on inverse hyperbolic sine daily wages (p < 0.05).
- Who was studied
- N = 227 male job seekers re-interviewed at the 8-month follow-up in Lilongwe, Malawi.
- How
- Heterogeneity analysis within an RCT/IV framework interacting baseline prior work experience with international employers against experimental job acquisition.
What to do
Design youth employment placement programs in partnership with international employers or high-prestige organizations to maximize post-program wage premiums for participants.
From the source
"Yet, the wage returns are magnified for those with either international employer or existing research experience."
Employment Exposure: Employment and Wage Effects in Urban Malawi