An Empirical Analysis of Employed and Unemployed Job Search Behavior

Abstract

This paper analyzes the job search activities of employed and unemployed job seekers using self-reported data from a 1980 survey. One novel finding from reduced form equations is that many searchers, both employed and unemployed, rejected at least one offer before accepting a job. The reduced form results are used to estimate reservation wages based on a fairly standard model of job search. Most of the job searchers accepted a job offer with a wage below the estimated reservation wage, suggesting that the model does not fit the data well.