The long-run costs of highly competitive exams for government jobs

IF 5.1 1区 经济学 Q1 ECONOMICS
Kunal Mangal
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Public sector recruitment exams can be highly competitive. Does this competition encourage candidates to develop generalizable skills, or do investments in exam preparation burden candidates who fail to get selected? I address this question by studying the impact of a partial public sector hiring freeze in the state of Tamil Nadu, India on male college graduates. The hiring freeze eliminated 86% of the usual vacancies. This increased the applicant-to-vacancy ratio for the remaining posts. Cohorts that were exposed to the hiring freeze delayed full-time employment, most likely in order to invest more time in exam preparation. A decade after the hiring freeze ended, the affected cohorts demonstrate a lower earning capacity, have delayed household formation, and appear more likely to remain unemployed. Together, these results suggest that highly competitive exams encourage candidates to make investments that are ultimately unproductive.

竞争激烈的政府职位考试的长期成本
公共部门招聘考试可能竞争激烈。这种竞争是鼓励应聘者发展通用技能,还是给未能入选的应聘者带来备考投资的负担?为了解决这个问题,我研究了印度泰米尔纳德邦部分公共部门冻结招聘对男性大学毕业生的影响。招聘冻结取消了 86% 的常规职位空缺。这增加了剩余职位的申请者与空缺率。受到招聘冻结影响的群体推迟了全职就业,很可能是为了投入更多时间准备考试。招聘冻结结束十年后,受影响的群体显示出较低的收入能力,推迟了组建家庭的时间,而且似乎更有可能继续失业。总之,这些结果表明,竞争激烈的考试会鼓励考生做出最终无益的投资。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
8.30
自引率
4.00%
发文量
126
审稿时长
72 days
期刊介绍: The Journal of Development Economics publishes papers relating to all aspects of economic development - from immediate policy concerns to structural problems of underdevelopment. The emphasis is on quantitative or analytical work, which is relevant as well as intellectually stimulating.
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