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...

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...

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 evaluate the impacts of a randomized job-fair intervention in which jobseekers and employers can meet at low cost. The intervention generates few hires, but it lowers participants' expectations and causes both firms and workers to invest more in search as predicted by a theoretical model;...

We relate origin-destination real price differences to immigrants' reservation wages and their career trajectories, exploiting administrative data from Germany and the 2004 enlargement of the European Union. We find that immigrants who enter Germany when a unit of earnings from Germany allows...

We relate origin-destination real price differences to immigrants' reservation wages and their career trajectories, exploiting administrative data from Germany and the 2004 enlargement of the European Union. We find that immigrants who enter Germany when a unit of earnings from Germany allows...

Gender gaps in labor market outcomes have traditionally been attributed to differences in individual productivity or to discrimination. More recently, several studies have documented the role of gender differences in psychological attitudes. Rather than using data on realized wages, we rely on...

Search frictions impede the labor market. Despite this indisputable fact, it is a priori unclear how job search costs affect search duration and unemployment: lower search costs make it easier to find a job, reducing search duration and unemployment, but may also increase the reservation wage,...

Occupational prestige or job status may induce people to remain unemployed even when jobs are available. Thus measured unemployment will always have a voluntary component. Accumulated wealth in a family tends to increase the opportunity cost of job search, more so in a world where job status is...

In this paper we provide the first evidence on workers' perceptions of the returns to job search effort. The perceived job finding probability is nearly linear in hours searched and only slightly concave for most respondents. While workers are over-optimistic about the probability of receiving a...

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...

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 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...

We measure individual bias in labor market expectations in German survey data and find that workers on average significantly overestimate their individual probabilities to separate from their job when employed as well to find a job when unemployed. These biases vary significantly between...

We present an equilibrium model of inter-linked frictional labour and marriage markets. In the marital market, men and women are involved in random sequential search for a partner. Men are seen as breadwinners in the family, and therefore in the labour market unemployed men carry out a...

Survey measures of the reservation wage reflect both the consumption-leisure trade-off and job search concerns (the arrival rate of job offers and the wage distribution). We examine what a survey measure of the reservation wage reveals about labor supply when search concerns are absent. To this...

We relate origin-destination real price differences to immigrants' reservation wages and their career trajectories, exploiting administrative data from Germany and the 2004 enlargement of the European Union. We find that immigrants who enter Germany when a unit of earnings from Germany allows...

We relate origin-destination real price differences to immigrants' reservation wages and their career trajectories, exploiting administrative data from Germany and the 2004 enlargement of the European Union. We find that immigrants who enter Germany when a unit of earnings from Germany allows...

We evaluate the impacts of a randomized job-fair intervention in which jobseekers and employers can meet at low cost. The intervention generates few hires, but it lowers participants' expectations and causes both firms and workers to invest more in search as predicted by a theoretical model;...

This study examines jobseekers’ preferences for job attributes and explores heterogeneity across sociodemographic groups, based on a choice experiment where approximately 1850 clients of the Flemish Public Employment Service (PES) who became unemployed 5 to 6 months before, and around 2000...

This study examines changes in reservation wages during the pandemic using data on desired wages among job seekers in Japan. The effects of occupational characteristics, municipal fear of infection risk, local labor market tightness and financial support on the changes in the reservation wages...

Activation is an efficacious policy paradigm in modern welfare states. Taking the case of Germany, we study the relationship between the embeddedness of benefit recipients in activating labor market institutions and individual labor supply. Using panel data, we estimate the effects of...

We use the stochastic frontier approach to estimate the reservation wage across different city groups in Colombia. We use the information of GEIH from 2008-2019 of 23 urban cities. We find empirical evidence in favor of the search theory predictions that suggest a positive relationship between...

Women report setting lower reservation wages than men in survey data. We show that women set reservation wages that are 14 to 18 percent lower than men's in laboratory search experiments that control for factors not fully observed in surveys such as offer distributions and outside options. This...

Unemployment insurance provides temporary cash benefits to eligible unemployed workers. Benefits are sometimes extended by discretion during economic slumps. In a model that features temporary benefits and sequential job opportunities, a worker's reservation wages are studied when policymakers...

We measure individual bias in labor market expectations in German survey data and find that workers on average significantly overestimate their individual probabilities to separate from their job when employed as well to find a job when unemployed. These biases vary significantly between...

The objectives of this study are to understand the determinants of reservation wages and measure the gap between reservation and market wages in North Macedonia. The study makes use of recently collected information on reservation wages in the Labor Force Survey 2016 and 2017. The analysis...

This paper develops a new approach to measuring non-wage amenities and com-pensating differentials in the labor market. Using a survey of 20,000 job movers in Denmark, we elicit workers' reservation wage to return to their previous jobs. Our sample contains a large, connected network of firms,...

In this paper we provide the first evidence on workers' perceptions of the returns to job search effort. The perceived job finding probability is nearly linear in hours searched and only slightly concave for most respondents. While workers are over-optimistic about the probability of receiving a...

Occupational prestige or job status may induce people to remain unemployed even when jobs are available. Thus measured unemployment will always have a voluntary component. Accumulated wealth in a family tends to increase the opportunity cost of job search, more so in a world where job status is...

Recent changes in labor arrangements have increased interest in estimating and understanding the value of job flexibility. We leverage a large natural field experiment at Uber to create exogenous variation in expected market wages across individuals and over time. Combining this experiment with...

The COVID-19 pandemic can change the reservation wage because of changes in people’s preferences due to the risk of infection, the accelerating trend of remote work, and the worsened household economy. Using data from Japan on job seekers’ desired wages, we found that the upward trend of...