Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/207338 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 12512
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We consider a labor market with search frictions in which workers make multiple applications and firms can post and commit to general mechanisms that may be conditioned both on the number of applications received and on the number of offers received by its candidate. When the contract space includes application fees, there exists a continuum of equilibria of which only one is socially efficient. In the inefficient equilibria, firms have market power that arises from the fact that the value of a worker’s application portfolio depends on what other firms offer, which allows individual firms to free ride and offer workers less than their marginal contribution. Finally, by allowing for general mechanisms, we are able to examine the sources of inefficiency in the multiple applications literature.
Subjects: 
multiple applications
directed search
competing mechanisms
efficiency
market power
JEL: 
C78
D44
D83
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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