The limited diffusion of salary information has implications for labor markets, such as wage discrimination policies and collective bargaining. Access to salary information is believed to be limited and unequal, but there is little direct evidence on the sources of these information frictions....

Five states and several cities, Philadelphia most prominently, have prohibited employers from asking applicants for their current rate of pay. These laws rest on the rationale that as women tend to be paid less than men the use of current pay rates in hiring can perpetuate sex discrimination,...