A thorny problem in identifying the determinants of reservation wages and particularly the role of continued joblessness in their evolution is the simultaneity issue. We deploy a natural control function approach to the problem that involves conditioning elapsed duration on completed...

This paper uses a unique Portuguese data set to examine the effect of unemployment benefit receipt and maximum duration of benefits on escape rates from unemployment. The focus is on the time profile of transitions out of unemployment. The novel aspect of the study resides in its identification...

Spain faces the highest unemployment rate among the European Union countries (22.2%), and Portugal one of the lowest (7.3%). However, superficially, these two countries share common labour market features: they both have the most stringent job security rules in the OECD, the architecture of...

This paper exploits the informational value of search theory, after Lancaster and Chesher (1983), in conjunction with survey data on the unemployed to calculate key reservation wage and duration elasticities for most EU-15 nations.

Using cross-country data, we investigate the determinants of reservation wages and their course over the jobless spell. Higher unemployment benefits lead to higher reservation wages. Further, repeated observations on the same individual provide scant evidence of declining reservation wages.

This paper examines the determinants of unemployment duration in the framework of a competing risks model, where the destination states are employment and inactivity. The major innovation is the use of a split-population approach to accommodate the presence of defective risks in the context of...

In Portugal duration of benefits is exclusively age determined while replacement rates are to all intents and purposes uniform. We exploit differences in potential maximum duration of benefits for nearly matched pairs of individuals who differ in age by one year and in potential maximum duration...

This paper charts the effects of unemployment insurance (UI) on escape rates from unemployment using data from the Displaced Worker Survey. Transition rates from unemployment to employment are estimated via a flexible semiparametric specification that allows the effects of UI recipiency (and...

This paper examines the effects of unemployment insurance on escape rates from unemployment using data from the 1998 Displaced Worker Survey. Transitions from unemployment to employment are modeled using a flexible representation of the baseline hazard function and allowing for discrete changes...

This paper uses data from the European Community Household Panel, 1994-99, to investigate the arrival rate of job offers, the determinants of reservation wages, transitions out of unemployment, and accepted wages. In this exploratory treatment, we report that the arrival rate of job offers...