Matching Frictions and Distorted Beliefs: Evidence from a Job Fair Experiment
通过随机招聘会实验发现，低成本见面机会虽未直接增加雇佣，但降低了参与者预期并促使双方加大搜寻投入，最终改善了低学历求职者的就业结果，同时证实了双方对市场存在过度乐观的信念。
Abstract We evaluate the impacts of a randomised job fair intervention in which jobseekers and employers can meet at low cost. The intervention generates few hires, but it lowers participants’ expectations and causes both firms and workers to invest more in search as predicted by a theoretical model; this improves employment outcomes for less educated jobseekers. Through a unique two-sided belief-elicitation survey, we confirm that firms and jobseekers have overoptimistic expectations about the market. This suggests that, beyond slowing down matching, search frictions have a second understudied cost: they entrench inaccurate beliefs, further distorting search strategies and labour-market outcomes.