This article uses a two-industry model of unemployment duration and job search to estimate rates of transition of displaced workers from unemployment to employment, distinguishing between employment in a worker's previous industry and in other industries. The competing-risks model allows inferences about search strategies to be drawn from data concerning employment outcomes and allows tests of some fundamental implications of search theory. There is evidence that improvements in the prospects for employment in their previous industry induce displaced workers to reduce search intensity or increase reservation wages in other industries.

This study simultaneously estimates the likelihoods that a worker receives advance notice of a plant closing and that a notified worker quits the job before its scheduled end. The author finds that fear of early attrition is a significant determinant of a firm's decision to provide advance notice. Explicit consideration of employer's concerns may significantly improve prediction of advance notice. Copyright 1994 by MIT Press.

The rate of transition from unemployment to re-employment for a sample of displaced workers is estimated using a semiparametric specification which allows the effects of unemployment insurance benefits to vary over time. Three results which would be missed by more restrictive specifications demonstrate the value of this approach: (1) The effects of UI benefits decline and eventually disappear as the date of expiration approaches, (2) Expiration of UI benefits are an inadequate explanation of the spikes commonly observed in nonparametric sample hazard rates for re-employment, (3) UI benefits do not significantly affect the rate at which a displaced worker becomes re-employed in his or her previous industry, but reduce the rate for transitions to other industries. Copyright 1991 by MIT Press.