“I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”: Evidence of Directed Search from a Field Experiment

Haoran He, David Neumark and Qian Weng

No 28660, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We explore the impact of wage offers on job applications, testing implications of the directed search model and trying to distinguish it from random search. We use a field experiment conducted on a Chinese job board, with real jobs for which we randomly varied the wage offers across three ranges. We find that higher wage offers raise application rates overall, which is consistent with directed search but can also arise with random search. We also find that higher wage offers raise application rates for job seekers with wage offers above reservation wages, and that – among the latter – the increase in application rates is stronger for those with higher reservation wages. The latter two types of evidence are consistent with directed search but not random search. Hence, our evidence lends support to directed search models.

JEL-codes: E24 J64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hrm, nep-lab and nep-mac
Note: EFG LS
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Published as Haoran He & David Neumark & Qian Weng, 2022. "‘I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For’: Evidence of Directed Search from a Field Experiment*," The Economic Journal, vol 133(649), pages 258-280.

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