Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/35182 
Year of Publication: 
2008
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 3667
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
This paper provides new evidence on job search intensity of the unemployed in the U.S., modeling job search intensity as time allocated to job search activities. The main findings are: 1) the average unemployed worker in the U.S. devotes about 41 minutes to job search on weekdays, which is substantially more than his or her European counterpart; 2) workers who expect to be recalled by their previous employer search substantially less than the average unemployed worker; 3) across the 50 states and D.C., job search is inversely related to the generosity of unemployment benefits, with an elasticity between -1.6 and -2.2; 4) the predicted wage is a strong predictor of time devoted to job search, with an elasticity in excess of 2.5; 5) job search intensity for those eligible for Unemployment Insurance (UI) increases prior to benefit exhaustion; 6) time devoted to job search is fairly constant regardless of unemployment duration for those who are ineligible for UI. A nonparametric Monte Carlo technique suggests that the relationship between job search effort and the duration of unemployment for a cross-section of job seekers is only slightly biased by length-based sampling.
Subjects: 
Unemployment
unemployment insurance
job search
time use
unemployment benefits
inequality
JEL: 
J64
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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