This workshop discusses how field experiments, guided by economic theory, have contributed to our understanding of organizations in the recent years. We focus on two crucial aspect of organizations: how to recruit talent and how to allocate authority. On the recruitment of talent, we explore how field experiments have provided new insights on the effects of salaries, career salience, and social identity on the pool of applicants. On the allocation of authority, we review novel field experiments which study how to allocate authority in organizations where autonomy leverages the agents’ private information and rules prevent them from extracting private benefits.

General:

Bandiera, O., I. Barankay and I. Rasul. Field Experiments with Firms. 2011. Journal of Economic Perspectives, Volume 25, Number 3-Summer 2011-Pages 63-82.

Recruitment:

*Del Carpio, L. and M. Guadalupe. More Women in Tech? 2019. Evidence from a field experiment addressing social identity. Mimeo.

Ashraf, N., O. Bandiera and S. Lee. 2018. Losing pro sociality in the quest for talent? Sorting, Selection and Performance in Public Service Delivery. Mimeo.

Authority allocation:

*Bandiera, O., M. Best, A. Khan, and A. Prat. 2019. The Allocation of Authority in Organizations: A Field Experiment with Bureaucrats. Mimeo.

Duflo, E., M. Greenstone, R. Pande and N. Ryan. 2018. The Value of Discretion in the Enforcement of Regulation: Experimental Evidence and Structural Estimates from Environmental Inspections in India. Econometrica, 86 , 2123–2160