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Author: Becker, Daniel Stephen
Resulting in 2 citations.
1. Becker, Daniel Stephen
Non-Wage Characteristics and the Case of the Missing Margin
Presented: Charlottesville, VA, Univeristy of Virginia, Bankard Applied Micro Economics Workshop, October 23, 2008.
Also: http://people.virginia.edu/~sns5r/microwkshp/becker.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Department of Economics, University of Virginia
Keyword(s): Job Characteristics; Job Search; Modeling; Transition, Job to Job; Unemployment Insurance; Wage Growth

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Job search models typically describe jobs in terms of wages without accounting for other characteristics, but empirical evidence suggests non-wage characteristics are an important determinant of job choice. For instance, workers in the NLSY79 report moving from a higher paying job to a lower paying job in 33% of voluntary job-to-job transitions. I estimate an equilibrium-based job search model that accounts for hiring wages, on-the-job wage growth, non-wage job characteristics, and measurement error. This model provides the first known estimate of the cumulative importance of all non-wage characteristics in job market decisions. I find that variation across jobs in non-wage characteristics is roughly twice as important as variation in hiring wages. I use the model and estimated parameters to measure how workers value the better non-wage characteristics and on-the-job wage growth potential that result when un-employment insurance enables them to search longer. Accounting for these previously unmeasured benefits more than triples my estimate of the program's value to workers.
Bibliography Citation
Becker, Daniel Stephen. "Non-Wage Characteristics and the Case of the Missing Margin." Presented: Charlottesville, VA, Univeristy of Virginia, Bankard Applied Micro Economics Workshop, October 23, 2008.
2. Becker, Daniel Stephen
Non-Wage Characteristics and the Case of the Missing Margin
Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Economics, University of Virginia, 2009.
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (PQDT)
Keyword(s): Job Characteristics; Job Search; Modeling; Occupational Choice; Transition, Job to Job; Unemployment Insurance; Wage Growth

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Job search models typically describe jobs solely in terms of wages, but empirical evidence suggests non-wage characteristics are an important determinant of job choice. For instance, workers in the NLSY79 report moving from a higher paying job to a lower paying job in 33% of voluntary job-to-job transitions. I estimate an equilibrium-based job search model that accounts for hiring wages, on-the-job wage growth, non-wage job characteristics and measurement error in wages. This model provides the first known estimate of the cumulative importance of all non-wage characteristics in job market decisions. I find that non-wage characteristics are a more important determinant of job choices than hiring wages.

I use the model and estimated parameters to measure how workers value the better non-wage characteristics and on-the-job wage growth potential that result when unemployment insurance enables them to search longer. Accounting for these previously unmeasured benefits roughly triples my estimate of the program's value to workers. These results suggest an important role for non-wage characteristics in other applications throughout labor economics.

Bibliography Citation
Becker, Daniel Stephen. Non-Wage Characteristics and the Case of the Missing Margin. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Economics, University of Virginia, 2009..