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Journal of Labor Economics Vol. 23 No. 1 2005

On‐the‐Job Search and the Wage Distribution

Bent Jesper Christensen1; Rasmus Lentz2; Dale T. Mortensen3; George R. Neumann4; Axel Werwatz5,6

1 Aarhus University · 2 Boston University · 3 Northwestern University · 4 University of Iowa · 5 German Institute for Economic Research · 6 University of Potsdam

Abstract

The article structually estimates an on‐the‐job search model of job separations. Given each employer pays observably equivalent workers the same but wages are dispersed across employers, an employer's separation flow is the sum of an exogenous outflow unrelated to the wage and a job‐to‐job flow that decreases with the employer's wage. Using data from the Danish Integrated Database for Labour Market Research, the empirical results imply, as predicted by theory, that search effort declines with the wage. Furthermore, the estimates explain the employment effect, defined as the horizontal difference between the distribution of wages earned and the wage offer distribution.

DOI
10.1086/425432
Volume
23
Issue
1
Pages
31-58
Language
en
Sources
openalex crossref

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