Job Search

I. Introduction, 113. — II. A simple model of job search, 115. — III. A more general model of job search, 123. — IV. An adaptive search model, 125.

Part I of this survey presents a comprehensive and inte- grated analysis of job search. The labor market is characterized by incomplete information and search is conducted in an optimal manner. A variety of job search models are studied in this microeconomic setting. The paper contains a number of new results. Part 11 of the survey [to appear in the September 1976 issue of Economic Inquiry] addresses the empirical and policy implications of search theory.

Education-job mismatches are reported to have serious effects on wages and other labour market outcomes. Such results are often cited in support of assignment theory, but can also be explained by institutional and human capital models. To test the assignment explanation, we examine the relation between educational mismatches and skill mismatches. In line with earlier research, educational mismatches affect wages strongly. Contrary to the assumptions of assignment theory, this effect is not explained by skill mismatches. Conversely, skill mismatches are much better predictors of job satisfaction and on-the-job search than are educational mismatches. Copyright 2001 by Oxford University Press.

A motivational, self-regulatory conceptualization of job search was used to organize and investigate the relationships between personality, expectancies, self, social, motive, and biographical variables and individual differences in job search behavior and employment outcomes. Meta-analytic results indicated that all antecedent variables, except optimism, were significantly related to job search behavior, with estimated population correlations ranging from -.15 to .46. As expected, job search behavior was significantly and positively related to finding employment. Several antecedents of job search were also significantly related to employment success, although the size of these relationships was consistently smaller than those obtained for job search. Moderator analyses showed significant differences in the size of variable relationships for type of job search measure (effort vs. intensity) and sample type (job loser vs. employed job seeker vs. new entrant).

Investigation of the development of a model on unemployment insurance (UI) and job search decisions. Information on job turnover; Details on the individual worker's preferences; Process of job search decision; Offsetting incentive effects of UI. (Abstract copyright EBSCO.)

The present study investigated the degree to which pay preferences influenced job search decisions in both hypothetical and actual organizations, and the degree to which preferences for particular compensation attributes depended on job seekers' dispositional characteristics. Based on prior theory and research, we hypothesized that certain pay systems generally would be preferred by job seekers, that these pay systems would affect applicant attraction to organizations, and that different types of job seekers would be attracted to different types of pay systems. The sample comprised 171 college students who were seeking jobs during the study, and who represented six majors, three degree types, and two degree levels. Experimental policy-capturing results and results obtained about actual companies with which the job seekers would potentially interview supported hypotheses that organizations perceived to offer high pay levels, flexible benefits, individualbased pay, and fixed pay policies were more attractive to job seekers. Results fiirther suggested that the attractiveness of these pay policies may be heightened by greater levels of fit between individual personality traits and compensation system characteristics. Pay is an important job attribute (Jurgensen, 1978) and has a significant influence on job attractiveness and subsequent job choice decisions (Rynes, 1987; Rynes, Schwab, & Heneman, 1983). Research on the relationship between compensation systems and job attractiveness typically has examined the effects of pay level (Barber, 1991; Gerhart & Milkovich, 1992). However, components of pay systems other than pay This article is based on the first author's master's thesis completed under the supervision of the second author. This study was funded by the Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies, Cornell University. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Ninth Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology,

Most applications of Nash bargaining over wages ignore between-employer competition for labor services and attribute all of the workers' rent to their bargaining power. In this paper, we write and estimate an equilibrium model with strategic wage bargaining and on-the-job search and use it to take another look at the determinants of wages in France. There are three essential determinants of wages in our model: productivity, competition between employers resulting from on-the-job search, and the workers' bargaining power. We find that between-firm competition matters a lot in the determination of wages, because it is quantitatively more important than wage bargaining a la Nash in raising wages above the workers' "reservation wages," defined as out-of-work income. In particular, we detect no significant bargaining power for intermediate- and low-skilled workers, and a modestly positive bargaining power for high-skilled workers.

This paper introduces on-the-job search into the model of search equilibrium that builds on the concept of the matching function and non-cooperative wage behavior. On-the-job search takes place only at short job tenures because of the accumulation of job-specific human capital. The model of search equilibrium retains familiar structure but yields new results. The most interesting is an increase in cyclical volatility of job vacancies and a dampening in that of unemployment, because of induced changes in the composition of jobs and the number of employed job seekers.

This research developed and tested a model of turnover contagion in which the job embeddedness and job search behaviors of coworkers influence employees' decisions to quit. In a sample of 45 branches of a regional bank and 1,038 departments of a national hospitality firm, multilevel analysis revealed that coworkers' job embedded-ness and job search behaviors explain variance in individual “voluntary turnover” over and above that explained by other individual and group-level predictors. Broadly speaking, these results suggest that coworkers' job embeddedness and job search behaviors play critical roles in explaining why people quit their jobs. Implications are discussed.

This paper exploits the differential timing of the introduction of a labor market program across areas as well as agerelated eligibility rules to identify the treatment effect of a targeted active labor market program. We are especially concerned about substitution and equilibrium wage effects. The program studied is the “New Deal for the Young Unemployed” in the UK and uses an administrative panel data on individuals between 1982 and 1999. This mandatory program involves extensive job assistance for young unemployed followed by various other options, including wage subsidies. Estimates of the employment effects of the mandatory job search assistance part of the program are presented using a variety of estimation techniques exploring combined "difference in differences” and matching procedures. Based on the pilot study we find that the New Deal program raised employment by a significant about 5 percentage points.