In a field experiment with 9,000 Danish job seekers, we study how unemployed workers' wage expectations affect job search and re-employment. In our survey, we generate exogenous variation in respondents' wage expectations by informing a random half of them about re-employment wages of comparable...

We investigate whether exclusionary government rhetoric targeting a minority group affects residents' migration decisions. In 2019, almost 100 local governments in Poland voted to declare their localities "free from LGBTQ ideology," providing a unique setting in which government narratives...

Wage information is rare in job adverts, yet crucial for search. To study this information friction, we run a field experiment with real vacancies, randomly adding or withholding wage information. Disclosing wages does not change average application volumes. Instead, it amplifies the wage...

This paper applies some of the key insights of dynamic discrete choice models to continuous-time job search models. Our framework incorporates preference shocks into search models, resulting in a tight connection between value functions and conditional choice probabilities. In this environment,...

This paper applies some of the key insights of dynamic discrete choice models to continuous-time job search models. Our framework incorporates preference shocks into search models, resulting in a tight connection between value functions and conditional choice probabilities. In this environment,...

This paper connects classical preference theory to quantitative job search and savings models. We treat job acceptance as a choice between stochastic income lotteries. By integrating Decreasing Absolute Risk Aversion (DARA) and Prudence (DAP), we derive five contributions. First, we prove the...

We partner with a Public Employment Service to examine whether jobseekers can be encouraged to reskill for shortage occupations. In a large-scale field experiment involving 100,000 recently unemployed individuals, we provide information on shortage occupations and related training opportunities....

We study the impact of online information provision to unemployed job seekers who are looking for work in occupations in slack markets, i.e. with only few vacancies per job seeker. Job seekers received suggestions about suitable alternative occupations, and how the prospects of these...

We conduct a field experiment with job seekers to investigate how feedback influences job search and labor market outcomes. Job seekers who receive feedback on their ability compared to other job seekers update their beliefs and increase their search effort. Specifically, initially...

We study the effect of finding a job through one's social contact on starting wages. Using combined SOEP-INKAR data for Germany and propensity score analysis - both matching and weighting - we document that referral hiring is associated with a wage penalty of 10%. This penalty is stable over...

We conduct a field experiment with job seekers to investigate how feedback influences job search and labor market outcomes. Job seekers who receive feedback on their ability compared to other job seekers update their beliefs and increase their search effort. Specifically, initially...

We partner with a Public Employment Service to examine whether jobseekers can be encouraged to reskill for shortage occupations. In a large-scale field experiment involving 100,000 recently unemployed individuals, we provide information on shortage occupations and related training opportunities....

This paper examines how gender-specific application behaviour, firms' hiring practices, and flexibility demands relate to the gender earnings gap, using linked data from the German Job Vacancy Survey and administrative records. Women are less likely than men to apply to high-wage firms with high...

We conduct a field experiment with job seekers to investigate how feedback influences job search and labor market outcomes. Job seekers who receive feedback on their ability compared to other job seekers update their beliefs and increase their search effort. Specifically, initially...

In the United States and other large economies, women receive less variable pay than men, even within the same firms and job titles. We argue this disparity in pay partly reflects labor market sorting. Since women are less-represented in more variable-pay-intensive jobs, even within occupations,...

Inequality is a dynamic phenomenon, and the relative and absolute positions of individuals are subject to frequent shocks. It is important to know if preventive interventions mitigate adverse inequality effects of labor market shocks. We consider individuals up to three months before the...

This paper examines how gender-specific application behaviour, firms' hiring practices, and flexibility demands relate to the gender earnings gap, using linked data from the German Job Vacancy Survey and administrative records. Women are less likely than men to apply to high-wage firms with high...

Means-tested welfare benefits are usually provided at the household level. Job search effort of unemployed welfare benefit recipients is monitored, and non-compliance with job search requirements can lead to a sanction and therewith to a temporary drop in household income. Among unemployed...

We provide new evidence that short-run temperature shocks affect unemployment dynamics. Linking daily weather data with three decades of Current Population Survey microdata, we show that cold, but not hot, temperatures significantly increase unemployment risk. This effect is concentrated in...

This study examines work orientations as a novel determinant influencing job search behaviors, quit intentions, and workplace effort, thereby integrating this concept into the field of labor economics. Work orientations, the intrinsic beliefs regarding the role of work in one's life, relate to...

This chapter, prepared for the Handbook of Labor Economics, presents a comprehensive overview of how labor economists understand job search among the unemployed and how job search is shaped by unemployment insurance (UI) and active labor market policies (ALMP). It focuses on synthesizing key...

Ex ante returns, the net value that agents perceive before they take an investment decision, are understood as the main drivers of individual decisions. Hence, their distribution in a population is an important tool for counterfactual analysis and policy evaluation. This paper studies the...

The aim of this study is to provide an academic basis for understanding the phenomenon of quiet quitters and begin to detail the characteristics that distinguish them. The defining behavioural characteristic of quiet quitters is that they reduced the hours they worked over time, especially over...

This paper investigates the impact of air pollution on reservation wages. We use rich survey data on unemployed job seekers in Germany and exploit variation in individual exposure to fine particulate matter (PM10) based on the quasi-random allocation of interview slots to individuals. Our...

We ran a field experiment to causally identify the effects of intense survey participation on key labour market outcomes. We randomly excluded individuals willing to sign up for the German Job Search Panel, a high-frequency survey with a focus on job search and well-being. Using administrative...

Norwegian workers' job mobility decisions are related to firms' wage policies, but also depend on the national tax schedule. By utilising Norwegian population-wide administrative linked employer-employee data on workers and firms between 2010-2019, we study how the job-to-job turnover of...

We study the accuracy of job seekers' wage expectations by comparing subjective beliefs to objective benchmarks using linked administrative and survey data. Our findings show that especially job seekers with low objective earnings potential and those predicted to face a penalty compared to their...

This study examines work orientations as a novel determinant influencing job search behaviors, quit intentions, and workplace effort, thereby integrating this concept into the field of labor economics. Work orientations, the intrinsic beliefs regarding the role of work in one's life, relate to...

Much of today's software relies on programming code shared openly online. Yet, it is unclear why volunteer developers contribute to open-source software (OSS), a public good. We study OSS contributions of some 22,900 developers worldwide on the largest online code repository platform, GitHub,...

This study examines jobseekers' preferences for a variety of job attributes. It is based on a choice experiment involving 1,852 clients of the Flemish Public Employment Service (PES). Respondents value flexibility (e.g., remote work and schedule flexibility), job security and social impact of...

We study how professional networks are related to immigrant labour market integration. Matched employer-employee data for Sweden show that networks grow with time in the host country and that their composition changes from immigrant toward native network members. A firm-dyadic analysis of...

Caseworker meetings have been shown to accelerate exit from unemployment. We explore whether they are also effectual before entering unemployment. In a natural field experiment, we offer caseworker meetings to workers at risk of losing their jobs while they are still employed. We find that the...

This paper examines the differential impact of job displacement on migrants and natives. Using administrative data for Germany from 1997-2016, we identify mass layoffs and estimate the trajectory of earnings and employment of observationally similar migrants and natives displaced from the same...

Understanding specific barriers to job search and returns to relaxing these barriers is important for economists and policymakers. An experiment that changes the default process for initiating job applications increases applications by 600% on a search platform in Pakistan. Perhaps surprisingly,...

We combine a high-frequency survey on job search effort with administrative data on caseworker interactions from the German unemployment insurance system to estimate how the dynamics of search effort respond to caseworker meetings and vacancy referrals. Meetings alone do not increase...

Why do women experience a persistent drop in labor earnings upon becoming mothers, i.e. a "child penalty"? We study a new mechanism: search frictions. We analyze data on job applications sent on a popular online platform linked with administrative data for 350,000 involuntarily unemployed...

This paper analyzes the relationship between gender-specific application behavior, employer-side flexibility requirements, and the gender earnings gap using a unique combination of the German Job Vacancy Survey (JVS) linked to administrative employment records. We document that women have a...

Our study investigates the occupational job search strategies of more than 60,000 unemployed workers in Denmark. We find substantial heterogeneity in how job seekers allocate their search activities across dierent occupations, and this heterogeneity persists throughout the duration of their...

Purpose: There is consistent evidence that a positive mindset could foster the job search process. Psychological capital, defined as a tendency to hold cognitions and positive appraisals of one's ability, could highlight the importance of individual cognitive appraisal in the job search process....

This paper sheds new light on the barriers to migrants' labor market assimilation. Using administrative data for Germany from 1997-2016, we estimate dynamic difference-in-differences regressions to investigate the relative trajectory of earnings, wages, and employment following mass layoff...