Ex Ante and Ex Post Inefficiency in Search and Matching Models

I present a directed search model of the labor market in which workers can send multiple applications and firms can make multiple job offers. The model incorporates many existing models as special cases, including the standard directed search model with one application and one job offer and the stable matching outcome. I characterize the equilibrium and argue that the number of applications sent and the number of job offers made generate enough variation in the equilibrium outcomes to structurally estimate both parameters. In that way, the model can answer the question whether ex ante frictions (i.e. on the worker side) or ex post frictions (i.e. on the firm side) contribute more to the output loss compared to the frictionless Walrasian world.