

Study: Job search effort, reservation wages, are key to finding a job - yummyfajitas
http://www.princeton.edu/~ceps/workingpapers/215krueger.pdf

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GFischer
I had to read the article to understand the term:

Reservation wage: the lowest wage that individuals would be willing to accept
if they receive a job offer.

Some interesting excerpts:

"the choice of job search activities and amount of search time do not bear a
straightforward relationship with the likelihood of receiving a job offer but
they do predict early exits from Unemployment Insurance"

Job search methods:

"Almost two thirds of job search time is spent looking at ads, placing or
answering ads and sending out applications."

Reservation Wage:

"each week we asked respondents for the lowest wage offer that they would
accept"... "no tendency for the reservation wage to decline over the spell of
unemployment"

"Older workers gradually realize that they cannot find a job that pays as well
as they expected and thus adjust their reservation wage down, whereas younger
workers are willing to maintain their reservation wage for longer because it
is more costly for them to accept a low paying job."

"Unlike the reservation wage, we do find a statistically significant effect of
unemployment duration on the willingness to accept a longer commute to work"

