On the Negative Correlation Between Performance and Experience and Education

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We consider a model where a worker's productivity must exceed some lower bound for himto satisfy the minimum qualifications for a particular job. If the worker's productivity exceeds some upper bound he is promoted. We assume the productivity of every worker increases with experience, tenure and education. This relationship differs across workers. We present distributions of workers with the property that, among workers on a particular job, education, experience, or tenure is negatively correlated with productivity; even though for any single worker on that job those demographic characteristics have strongly positive effects on productivity. The result is due to the effect of the job assignment rule on the distribution of workers on the job.

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