On-the-job search and the productivity-wage gap

We examine how worker and firm on-the-job search have differential impacts on the productivity-wage gap. While an increase in both worker and firm on-the-job search raise productivity, they have opposing effects on wages. Increased worker on-the-job search raises workers’ outside options, allowing them to demand higher wages. Increased firm on-the-job search improves firms’ bargaining position relative to workers’ by raising job insecurity and the wedge between hiring and meeting rates, allowing firms to pass-through a smaller share of productivity to wages and enlarging the productivity-wage gap. Quantitatively, the model accounts for about a quarter of the observed divergence in the US productivity-wage gap between 1990 and 2017.