In a segmented labor market, theory predicts that employment protection has an asymmetric impact on entry and incumbent wages. We explore a reform that increased the protection of open-ended contracts for a well-defined subset of firms, while leaving it unchanged for other firms. The causal...

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

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...

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, again consistent with the basic search model, repeated observations on the same individual provide scant...