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This dissertation investigates the process through which gender disparities in pay may arise and be remediated at the point of hire. Chapter 1 provides, for the first time in the literature, a study of initial salary offers across jobs, firms, and industries, in the U.S. between 2017 and 2020. Results demonstrate a persistent gender gap in offers, after controlling for observable differences in human capital, job, firm, and industry characteristics. Chapter 2 continues to investigate the sources of gender disparities in pay. The salary history ban is leveraged as a unique setting to test the role of information in shaping pay disparities among demographic groups. Contrary to the predictions offered by theories of statistical discrimination, the inclusion of productivity-relevant information from prior organizations, such as the inclusion of past salary information, leads to greater, not lesser, gender disparities in pay. Chapter 3 proceeds to reconcile this theoretical puzzle. Findings from twenty-one in-depth, semi-structured interviews with hiring managers reveal that information is not used at the offer stage to infer candidates' quality, as assumed by prior theories of wage-setting, but to infer the amount of leverage candidates may have in offer negotiation. I find that when not knowing job candidates' past salary information, employers extend similarly competitive offers to male and female candidates, out of fear of losing qualified candidates to other potential employers. Collectively, these chapters draw attention to the point of hire as a key source of gender disparities in pay.
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