Job Search and Job Finding in a Period of Mass Unemployment: Evidence from High-Frequency Longitudinal Data
60 Pages Posted: 31 Jan 2011
Date Written: January 15, 2011
Abstract
This paper presents findings from a survey of 6,025 unemployed workers who were interviewed every week for up to 24 weeks in the fall of 2009 and spring of 2010. Our main findings are: (1) the amount of time devoted to job search declines sharply over the spell of unemployment; (2) the self-reported reservation wage predicts whether a job offer is accepted or rejected; (3) the reservation wage is remarkably stable over the course of unemployment for most workers, with the notable exception of workers who are over age 50 and those who had nontrivial savings at the start of the study; (4) many workers who seek full-time work will accept a part-time job that offers a wage below their reservation wage; and (5) the amount of time devoted to job search and the reservation wage help predict early exits from Unemployment Insurance (UI).
Keywords: unemployment insurance, job search, reservation wage
JEL Classification: J64, J65
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
Incentives in Competitive Search Equilibrium
By Espen R. Moen and Asa Rosen
-
The Cyclical Behavior of Equilibrium Unemployment and Vacancies Revisited
By Marcus Hagedorn and Iourii Manovskii
-
The Cyclical Behavior of Equilibrium Unemployment and Vacancies: Evidence and Theory
-
Incentives in Competitive Search Equilibrium and Wage Rigidity
By Espen R. Moen and Asa Rosen
-
Incentives in Competitive Search Equilibrium and Wage Rigidity
By Espen R. Moen and Asa Rosen
-
Search-Theoretic Models of the Labor Market: A Survey
By Richard Rogerson and Randall Wright
-
Search-Theoretic Models of the Labor Market-A Survey
By Richard Rogerson, Robert Shimer, ...
-
Unemployment Fluctuations with Staggered Nash Wage Bargaining
By Mark Gertler and Antonella Trigari
-
Employer-to-Employer Flows in the U.S. Labor Market: The Complete Picture of Gross Worker Flows