In a world characterized by asymmetric learning, promotions can serve as signals of worker ability, and this, in turn, can result in inefficient promotion decisions. If the labor market is competitive, the result will be practices that reduce this distortion. We explore how this logic affects human capital investment decisions. We show that, if commitment is possible, investments will be biased toward the accumulation of firm-specific human capital. We also consider what happens when commitment is not possible and show a number of results including that, if investment choices are not publicly observable, choices are frequently efficient.

中文翻译：

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促销信号和人力资本投资

在一个以学习不对称为特征的世界中，晋升可以作为工人能力的信号，而这反过来又会导致低效的晋升决策。如果劳动力市场具有竞争力，结果将是减少这种扭曲的实践。我们探讨这种逻辑如何影响人力资本投资决策。我们表明，如果承诺是可能的，投资将偏向于企业特定人力资本的积累。我们还考虑了当承诺不可能时会发生什么，并展示了一些结果，包括如果投资选择无法公开观察，则选择通常是有效的。