Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series Database (1984 - 2010)

Melbourne Institute Working Paper No. 13/2004

Job Search Success: Comparing Job Offer Rates In and Out of Employment

by

Deborah Cobb-Clark, Paul Frijters and Guyonne Kalb

Date: July 2004

Abstract: This paper investigates whether job offers arrive more frequently for those in employment than for those in unemployment. To this end, we take advantage of a unique Australian data set which contains information on both accepted and rejected job offers. Our estimation strategy takes account of the selectivity associated with the initial employment state and we allow for individual heterogeneity in the probability of obtaining jobs. Our results reveal that, across the wage range, individuals are about equally likely to obtain a job offer in employment as in unemployment. This implies that encouraging unemployed (rather than employed) search through the provision of unemployment benefits does not improve the speed of a job match.

 

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