Job Search Behavior Among the Employed and Non-Employed
73 Pages Posted: 31 Aug 2017 Last revised: 18 Aug 2022
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Job Search Behavior Among the Employed and Non-Employed
Abstract
Using a unique new survey, we study the relationship between search effort and outcomes for employed and non-employed workers. We find that the employed fare better than the non-employed in job search: they receive more offers per application and are offered higher pay even after controlling for observable characteristics. We use an on-the-job search model with endogenous search effort and find that unobserved heterogeneity explains less than a third of the residual wage offer differential. The model calibrated using various moments from our survey provides a good fit to the data and implies a reasonable flow value of unemployment.
Keywords: wage dispersion, search effort, on-the-job search, unemployment, job search
JEL Classification: E24, J29, J60
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