HIRING STANDARDS AND LABOUR MARKET CLEARING

Consider a labour market with heterogeneous workers. When recruiting workers, firms set a hiring standard and make a wage offer. A more demanding hiring standard necessitates a better wage offer in order to attract enough qualified applicants. As a result, an efficiency wage effect is obtained. An equilibrium emerges which does not clear the labour market. The wage level depends on structural characteristics of labour supply, such as heterogeneity and mobility of the workers, but-in contrast to other efficiency-wage models-not on the level of unemployment and is, thus, compatible with increasing unemployment as observed, e.g. in Germany. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2005.