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 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...

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...

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...

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 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...

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 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;...

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 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...

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...

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...

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,...

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,...

The present paper examines the reservation wages reported by a largesample of unemployed individuals in the United States in May 1976. The majorityof unemployedindividuals report reservation wages that are at least as highas the wage they were paid on their last job. Approximately one-fourth of...

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...

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...

Formal sector entry-level jobs in Mexico offer low starting salaries but substantial wage growth. This paper experimentally tests whether a six-months wage incentive can increase formal employment among secondary school graduates. Combining survey and high-frequency social security data, the...

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...

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 evolution of the aggregate labor market is far from smooth. I investigate the success of a macro model in replicating the observed levels of volatility of unemployment and other key variables. I take variations in productivity growth and in exogenous product demand (government purchases plus...

The paper is an empirical cross-section study of the retirement decisions of American white men between the ages of 58 and 67. predicated on the theoretical notion that an individual retires when his reservation wage exceeds his market wage. Reservation wages are derived from an explicit utility...

When a job-seeker and an employer meet, find a prospective surplus, and bargain over the wage, conditions in the outside labor market, including especially unemployment, may be irrelevant. The job-seeker's threat point in the bargain is to delay bargaining, not to terminate bargaining and resume...

How does impatience affect job search? More impatient workers search less intensively and set a lower reservation wage. The effect on the exit rate from unemployment is unclear. In this paper we show that, if agents have exponential time preferences, the reservation wage effect dominates for...

This study examines the determinants of the reservation wage of unemployed persons in the Federal Republic of Germany in 1976. The theoretical section presents the derivation of an optimal reservation wage and shows the source of an ambiguity of some explanatory variables. The data basis are...

Labor market programs may affect unemployed individuals' behavior before they enroll. Such ex ante effects are hard to identify without model assumptions. We develop a novel method that relates self-reported perceived treatment rates and job-search behavioral outcomes, like the reservation wage,...

This paper exploits survey information on reservation wages and data on actual wages from the European Community Household Panel to deduce in the manner of Lancaster and Chesher (1983) additional parameters of a stylized structural search model; specifically, reservation wage and...

Using cross-country data, we investigate the determinants of reservation wages and their course over the jobless spell. Higher unemployment benefits lead to higher reservation wages. Further, again consistent with the basic search model, repeated observations on the same individual provide scant...

We examine how group-specific differences in reservation wage, arising due to asymmetries in social entitlements, impact on distribution via the joint determination of class conflict between workers and employers, and 'ethnic' conflict among workers. We model a two-dimensional contest, where two...

The COVID-19 pandemic can change the reservation wage because of changes in people’s preferences due to the risk of infection, the rapid rise of work at home, or a worsened household economy. Furthermore, the changing reservation wage changes the decision to work, especially for the second...

We measure extensive-margin labor supply (employment) preferences in two representative surveys of the U.S. and German populations. We elicit reservation raises: the percent wage change that renders a given individual indifferent between employment and nonemployment. It is equal to her...