Empirical Search Models

This chapter discusses various methods that have been used to estimate structural models of search and survival models. Most of the focus is on using available data, usually on unemployment spell lengths and accepted wage o¤ers, to estimate the parameters of speci…c search models. In particular, we focus on estimating the parameters of the wage o¤er distribution, the reservation wageor reservation wage function, the cost of search, o¤er arrival rate, and discount rate. There is an added section on survival models because survival models have been used so extensively to look at unemployment spell data