Do Microcredentials Help New Workers Enter the Market?

Notes: Worker project distribution. In Panel A, workers’ specialization is defined as the category of project that each worker has worked on the most. Projects and microcredentials are manually classified into the seven categories.

Notes: In Columns 1–3, the unit of observation is one project. In Columns 4–12, the unit of observation is a 14 day pre‐ or post‐test period. In addition to the variables reported, all models include year dummies and cumulative (arsinh‐transformed) dollars earned on the platform. “Baseline” refers to the mean of the dependent variable. Standard errors are clustered on the worker level. The significance levels in all specifications are: ^*** = 0.1%, ^** = 1%, ^* = 5%, and + = 10%.

Notes: In Column 1, the unit of observation is one project. In Columns 2–4, the unit of observation is a 14‐day pre‐ or post‐test period. In addition to the variables reported, all models include year dummies, the average rating for completed projects, a dummy variable with value 1 if a worker does not have any ratings from past projects, cumulative (arsinh‐transformed) dollars earned on the platform, and the cumulative number of completed projects on the platform, measured at the time of project start. Estimation is based on CEM matching without replacement. Variables used for matching in Column 1 are: the number of completed tests, the number of completed projects, year dummies, a no‐past‐rating dummy, and cumulative earnings and past ratings. In Columns 2–4, matching is done using the same covariates as in Column 1 and the values of the dependent variable in periods t = –1, . . ., –4. “Treated” is an indicator variable that equals 1 for each worker who belongs to the treatment group and 0 otherwise. “Difference in pre‐trends” refers to an interaction term between a linear time trend and a treated group dummy variable for the pre‐test time trend (see the text for details). Standard errors are clustered on the match group level. Significance levels in all specifications are: ^*** = 0.1%, ^** = 1%, ^* = 5%, and + = 10%

Notes: In addition to the variables reported, all models include year dummies, an average rating for completed projects, a dummy variable with value 1 if a worker does not have ratings from past projects, cumulative (arsinh‐transformed) dollars earned on the platform, and the cumulative number of completed projects on the platform, measured at the time of project start. Standard errors are clustered on the worker level. The significance levels in all specifications are: ^*** = 0.1%, ^** = 1%, ^* = 5%, and + = 10%.

Notes: In addition to the variables reported, all models include year dummies, an average rating for completed projects, a dummy variable with the value 1 if a worker does not have ratings from past projects, cumulative (arsinh‐transformed) dollars earned on the platform, and the cumulative number of completed projects on the platform, measured at the time of project start. Standard errors are clustered on the worker level. The significance levels in all specifications are: ^*** = 0.1%, ^** = 1%, ^* = 5%, and + = 10%.

Notes: Estimates are from the fixed‐effects event‐study specification. In Column 1 the unit of observation is one project. In Columns 2–4, the unit of observation is a 14 day pre‐ or post‐test period. In addition to the variables reported, all models include year dummies, an average rating for completed projects, a dummy variable with the value 1 if the freelancer does not have ratings from past projects, cumulative (arsinh‐transformed) dollars earned on the platform, the cumulative number of completed projects on the platform, measured at the time of project start, and event fixed effects. Standard errors are clustered on the worker level. The significance levels in all specifications are: ^*** = 0.1%, ^** = 1%, ^* = 5%, and + = 10%.