Preunemployment search is the fundamental labor market process generating beneficial effects of advance notice. Yet theory indicates that workers receiving notice may not search, whereas others may search even without advance notice. Our weighted results indicate that over one-third of all nonnotified workers still search and over 40% of workers receiving notice do not respond by searching. Further, preunemployment search determinants differ for notified (nonnotified) workers and men (women). For notified men, search is strongly increased by longer notice and strongly decreased by higher unemployment insurance benefits. But neither factor affects the employed search decisions of notified women.

Worker incentive schemes are invariably assumed to be administered by an owner-entrepreneur who has an incentive to understate worker performance after the event. While tournaments can overcome this problem, they discourage cooperation between workers. We show that a professional manager concerned with equality between workers and with avoiding bankruptcy rather than maximizing shareholder wealth will conduct a tournament that preserves individual effort incentives while promoting cooperation between workers. The theory predicts lower debt levels and more compressed pay scales as cooperation becomes more important. In the limit this becomes a group bonus scheme, supported by "blue-chip" debt.