Skeptical Employers: Experimental Evidence on Biased Beliefs Constraining Firm Growth
在加纳的实验中，雇主低估了工人的可信赖度，这减少了雇佣和利润；负面信号降低预期，正面信号则无影响，这种不对称性可能维持了有限实验和偏见信念的均衡。
Abstract Does low trust in workers discourage firms from hiring? We conduct an experiment in Ghana with real entrepreneurs who have the option to hire anonymous workers for a trivial but tedious task. Shirking attracts no penalty and completion of the task is an indicator of trustworthiness. We elicit employers’ expectations and study how they change with random signals of workers’ previous behavior. We find that employers underestimate workers’ trustworthiness, which reduces hiring and profits. Negative signals lower employers’ expectations, while positive signals do not affect them. This asymmetry can help to sustain an equilibrium with limited experimentation and biased beliefs.