Going the Extra Mile: Effort by Workers and Job-Seekers

Abstract

We introduce two types of effort into an otherwise standard labor search model to examine equilibrium determinacy. Indeterminacy occurs when wages rise sharply in response to a labor market tightening. Variable labor effort gives rise to short-run increasing returns to hours in production. This raises workers’ marginal product and wages, expanding the region of indeterminacy. Variable search effort makes workers search more intensively in a tighter labor market, which limits the rise in wages and shrinks the region of indeterminacy. Indeterminacy disappears completely when vacancy posting costs are replaced with hiring costs.

Keywords: determinacy, effort, hours, labor, search intensity

JEL Classification: E23, E24, E32, E64, E71