  I study the effects of US salary history bans which restrict employers from
inquiring about job applicants' pay history during the hiring process, but
allow candidates to voluntarily share information. Using a
difference-in-differences design, I show that these policies narrowed the
gender pay gap significantly by 2 p.p., driven almost entirely by an increase
in female earnings. The bans were also successful in weakening the
auto-correlation between current and future earnings, especially among
job-changers. I provide novel evidence showing that when employers could no
longer nudge candidates for information, the likelihood of voluntarily
disclosing salary history decreased among job applicants and by 2 p.p. more
among women. I then develop a salary negotiation model with asymmetric
information, where I allow job applicants to choose whether to reveal pay
history, and use this framework to explain my empirical findings on disclosure
behavior and gender pay gap.
