We study competitive equilibria in a signalling economy with heterogeneously informed buyers. In terms of the classic Spence (1973, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 87, 355—374) model of job market signalling, firms have access to direct but imperfect information about worker types, in addition to observing their education. Firms can be ranked according to the quality of their information, i.e., their expertise. In equilibrium, some high-type workers forgo signalling and are hired by better informed firms, which make positive profits. Workers’ education decisions and firms’ use of their expertise are strategic complements, allowing for multiple equilibria that can be Pareto ranked. We characterize wage dispersion and the extent of signalling as a function of the distribution of expertise among firms. Our model can also be applied to a variety of other signalling problems, including securitization, corporate financial structure, insurance markets, or dividend policy.

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向专家发信号

我们研究了在信号经济中具有不同知情购买者的竞争均衡。根据经典的Spence（1973，《经济学季刊》，第87卷，第355-374页）的工作市场信号模型，除了观察他们的学历外，企业还可以获取有关工人类型的直接但不完善的信息。公司可以根据其信息的质量进行排名，即，他们的专业知识。在平衡状态下，一些高水平的工人放弃了信号传递，而被知识渊博的公司雇用，从而获得了正利润。工人的教育决策和公司对专业知识的使用是战略补充，可以实现帕累托（Pareto）排名的多重均衡。我们将工资分散和信号传递的程度描述为企业间专业知识分布的函数。我们的模型还可以应用于各种其他信号问题，包括证券化，公司财务结构，保险市场或股息政策。