Job Search in Thick Markets: Evidence from Italy

I analyze empirically the effects of both urban and industrial agglomeration on men`s and women`s search behavior and on the efficiency of matching. The analysis is based on the Italian Labor Force Survey micro-data, which covers 520 randomly drawn Local Labor Market Areas (66 per cent of the total) over the four quarters of 2002. I compute transition probabilities from non-employment to employment by jointly estimating the probability of searching and the probability of finding a job conditional on having searched, and I test whether these are affected by urbanization, industry localization, labor pooling and family network quality. In general, the main results indicate that urbanization and labor pooling raise job seekers` chances of finding employment (conditional on having searched), while industry localization and family network quality increase only men`s. Moreover, neither urban nor industrial agglomeration affect non-employed indvidiual`s search behavior; although men with thicker family networks search more intensively.