Exploring the link between employment search time and reservation

In our piece of work we are facing a two-fold problem: on the one hand, we study the behaviour of young job seekers and the extent to which reservation wages and unemployment benefits play a relevant role in the transition into working life. On the other hand, we intend to find out whether the determinants of the job search process may also affect subsequent wages. We undertake an empirical approach combining one-step estimations with two-step instrumental variables techniques. The data used to this end come from the European Community Household Panel (ECHP) for the period 1995-2001. To be precise, the sub-sample gathers both male and female Southern European (Italian, Greek, Spanish and Portuguese) workers. From the results of the analysis important subtleties arise, particularly related to differences across countries.