A seminar on this topic will be held in Sölvhóll, a conference room in the Central Bank of Iceland, on Monday 21 December at 15:00.

The presenter will be Andreas I. Mueller, professor at Columbia University.

Abstract: Using a unique new survey, we study the relationship between search effort and employment outcomes for employed and non-employed job seekers. We find that the employed fare much better than the unemployed in their job search prospects along several dimensions, despite lower job search effort. The employed receive more offers per job application, and conditional on an offer, they are offered higher pay, more benefits, and more hours. Despite this, they are less likely to accept these higher-quality job offers but are also much less likely to again engage in job search on their new job. Employed job seekers receive also a higher fraction of both solicited and unsolicited job offers, and tend to generate many offers from referral networks with ties to their professional acquaintances. In fact, many employed workers are not seeking new work at all, and yet tend to generate more plentiful and higher-quality job offers than unemployed job seekers.

The seminar will be in English.