Evidence about the relationship of local unemployment rates and individuals' reservation wages and duration of search for a job if unemployed is sparse and mixed. This study uses US data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to test whether relatively high local unemployment rates reduce the reservation wages of area residents or increase the duration of search. Labour search theory provides the grounding for the sample selection corrected simultaneous equations econometric model. In neither OLS nor 2SLS results is evidence found that local unemployment rates affect either reservation wages or the duration of search. These results suggest that policies targeted at alleviating unemployment should focus on increasing the demand for labour rather than hope that such policies will be beneficial if pursued in high-unemployment areas because of their effects on labour force characteristics.
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Article provided by Taylor and Francis Journals in its journal Applied Economics.
Volume (Year): 35 (2003) Issue (Month): 13 (September) Pages: 1469-1476 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML,
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References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Balvers, Ronald J, 1990.
"Variability and the Duration of Search,"
International Economic Review,
Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 31(3), pages 747-51, August.
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