Social networks and unraveling in labor markets

This paper studies the phenomenon of early hiring in entry-level labor markets affected by social networks. We offer a model in which information is revealed over time. At first, workers have noisy information about their own ability. The early information is ‘soft’ and non-verifiable, and workers can convey the information credibly only to firms that are connected to them. Later on, ‘hard’ accurate verifiable information becomes available. We characterize the effects of changes to the network structure on the unraveling of the market towards early hiring. Moreover, we show that an efficient design of the matching procedure can prevent unraveling.