New Papers

Advising Job Seekers in Occupations with Poor Prospects: A Field Experiment  (with Bart K. de Koning, Didier Fouarge, Philipp Kircher, Paul Muller, Sandra Philippen), IZA DP No. 17905, JUNE 2025

We study the impact of online information provision to unemployed job seekers who are looking for work in occupations in slack markets, i.e. with only few vacancies per job seeker. Job seekers received suggestions about suitable alternative occupations, and how the prospects of these alternatives compare to their current occupation of interest. Some additionally received a link to a motivational video. We evaluate the interventions using a randomized field experiment covering all eligible job seekers registered to search in the target occupations. The vast majority of treated job seekers open the message revealing the alternative suggestions. The motivational video is rarely watched. Effects on unemployed job seekers in structurally poor labor markets are large: their employment, hours of work and labor income all improve by 5% to 6% after 18 months. Additional survey evidence shows that treated job seekers find employment in more diverse occupations.

Do the Long-term Unemployed Benefit from Automated Occupational Advice during Online Job Search, CEPR Discussion Paper DP17513, (published in Economic Journal)

In a randomized field experiment, we provide personalized suggestions about suitable alternative occupations to long-term unemployed job seekers in the UK. The suggestions are automatically generated, integrated in an online job search platform, and fed into actual search queries. Effects on the primary pre-registered outcomes of "finding a stable job" and "reaching a cumulative earnings threshold" are positive, are significant among those who searched at least once, and are more pronounced for those who are longer unemployed. Treated individuals include more occupations in their search and find more jobs in recommended occupations. 

Gender Diversity and Diversity of Ideas , REVISED VERSION 16 JANUARY 2025

Michèle Belot, Madina Kurmangaliyeva (ULB) and Johanna Luise Reuter (Linz)

This paper examines the relationship between gender diversity and the diversification of ideas in Academia and in the knowledge sector. Diversity  in employee representation is often advocated for its potential to foster diversity in ideas, and thereby innovation. However, this process of ‘diversifying ideas’ critically depends on decisions of incumbents, such as hiring and funding. If interests and ideas differ between incumbents and minorities, it may be difficult for minorities to 'break through'. We first present evidence from the Academic Economics junior job market, where numerous initiatives have been launched in recent years to boost the representation of women. We find that women fare as well as men on the market, but they fare substantially better if they specialize in a more male-dominated field. In an Online Experiment, we study the demand for ideas in a college-educated population. We find large gender differences in the topics men and women choose to engage with. We then show that incentives encouraging the selection of topics that are typically more female are more effective at increasing their representation than incentives encouraging the selection of women.