انگیزه های جستجوی کار و کیفیت بازی کار

We examine the impacts of time-limited unemployment insurance (UI) and active labor market programs (ALMP) on the duration and outcome of job search in Norway. We use a comprehensive simultaneous equations model accounting for i) the duration of unemployment spells; ii) their outcomes, iii) subsequent employment stability; and iv) the earnings level associated with the first job. We find that time invested in job search pays off in form of higher earnings once a job match is formed. ALMP raises the probability of eventually finding a job as well as expected earnings, but at the cost of lengthening job search.

It is a well-known fact that job search conditions—as reflected in, e.g., unemployment insurance (UI) and active labor market programs (ALMP)—affect the opportunity cost of continued job search, and, hence, a job seeker's choosiness and search effort. Participation in ALMP may also improve the human capital of the job seeker, and, thus, the distribution of available job opportunities. A number of empirical studies have examined how these effects play out with respect to the duration and outcome of unemployment spells and the quality of a subsequent job match. Leaving aside the huge existing empirical literature on the effects of UI insurance and ALMP on unemployment duration (see Card et al. (2007), Kluve et al. (2007) and Card et al. (2010) for recent reviews), our paper relates closely to two different strands of the literature. The first is the empirical literature on the impacts of unemployment duration and UI generosity on subsequent job quality. While the early contributions to this literature (Ehrenberg and Oaxaca, 1976, Burgess and Kingston, 1976 and Hoelen, 1977) tended to find favorable impacts of time invested in job search, the more recent evidence is mixed.1 Based on a quasi-natural experiment, Van Ours and Vodopivec (2008) find that a reform that shortened the maximum duration of UI benefits in Slovenia reduced the duration of unemployment sharply, while leaving the post-unemployment wages and job duration unaffected. They conclude that reducing job search subsidies will speed up the matching process with no loss in the quality of the post-unemployment job match. Similar results are reported for Germany by Schmieder et al. (2010) on the basis of a regression discontinuity methodology exploiting that maximum UI duration depends on exact age. Tatsiramos (2009) uses the European Community Household Panel (ECHP) to assess the effects of UI on unemployment duration and (subsequent) employment duration in eight European countries. The effect of UI is identified by a comparison between recipients' and non-recipients' outcomes. He finds that UI raises unemployment duration, but, in contrast to Van Ours and Vodopivec (2008), he also concludes that UI significantly improves subsequent employment stability. According to these results, policy makers face a tradeoff, whereby a speedier job matching process is obtained at the cost of poorer job matches. Similar results are provided for the United States by McCall and Chi (2008), based on the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79). Addison and Blackburn (2000) also report evidence of a weak favorable impact of UI on the post-unemployment wage, while Belzil (2001) and Centeno (2004) report evidence of a small favorable impact on job duration. The second strand of research that our paper is connected to is the empirical literature on transitions out of unemployment based on nonparametric mixed multivariate hazard rate models and the timing-of-events approach; see Abbring and Van den Berg (2003) for a theoretical justification of the methodology and Røed and Zhang, 2003 and Røed and Zhang, 2005, Van den Berg et al. (2004), Røed and Raaum (2006), Crépon et al. (2009), and Røed and Westlie (2012) for recent applications. Our own paper relates particularly closely to Røed and Westlie (2012), which examines how different UI regimes affect the duration and outcome of unemployment spells in Norway. While they find that shorter maximum UI duration significantly reduces unemployment duration with only minor effects on the distribution of next-state-destinations, they do not consider the characteristics of the resultant job matches. A novelty of the present paper in relation to Røed and Westlie (2012) is thus that we model post-unemployment job quality (earnings and employment stability), facilitating an assessment of the tradeoff between speed and quality in the job matching process. Our paper also relates closely to McCall and Chi (2008) and to Crépon et al. (2012), who both set up simultaneous equations models for unemployment duration and post-unemployment job quality. The models used in these papers allow for correlated unobserved random effects, although not in a completely nonparametric fashion as we do in the present paper. While McCall and Chi (2008) focus on UI receipt and post-unemployment earnings, Crépon et al. (forthcoming) focus on participation in training programs and post-unemployment employment stability. An important finding in the latter of these papers is that training programs have positive effects on subsequent employment duration, but that this gain is obtained at the cost of lengthening unemployment duration (due to a lock-in effect during participation). To our knowledge, no empirical evaluation has yet attempted to model the duration and outcome of the job search process within a unified simultaneous equation framework, such that the impacts of UI and ALMP on search duration can be traded off against their impacts on the qualities of its ultimate outcome. The present paper seeks to fill this gap. Our modeling strategy is motivated by the need to identify the causal effects of endogenous events such as unemployment duration and ALMP participation. We then have to take into account that, e.g., unobserved characteristics affecting unemployment duration also influence the quality of the accepted job. Given our non-experimental data, we build on the timing-of-events approach (Abbring and Van den Berg, 2003), and set up a multivariate hazards model to analyze transitions out of registered unemployment. The model takes into account that some job seekers are endogenously sorted into ALMP. We examine the causal impacts of participation in ALMP on the duration and outcome of job search. We also examine the impacts of unemployment duration on the quality of an accepted job. In addition to controlling for a rich set of observed explanatory variables, we allow for jointly distributed unobserved heterogeneity by means of the nonparametric maximum likelihood estimator (NPMLE). Our preferred model contains a discretely distributed six-dimensional vector of unobserved heterogeneity with 27 distinct support-points. The key findings of our paper are the following: First, during its first six months, the job search process is productive in the sense that the expected earnings from an accepted job match increase significantly with the time spent searching. Second, the transition intensity from unemployment to employment rises sharply in the run-up to UI exhaustion, whereas the level of accepted earnings declines. And third, while participation in ALMP initially reduces the employment hazard (lock-in effect), the impact becomes favorable after around 6 months of participation. For most participants and program durations, the employment hazard is also significantly higher after participation than it was before entry into the program. In addition, participation in ALMP tends to improve subsequent earnings. Based on model simulations, we summarize the various treatment effects in terms of a comprehensive earnings (value of work) measure, covering a 5-year period after the start of unemployment. Even though program participation raises both the probability of eventually finding a job and the level of earnings given that a job match is formed, it contributes to reduce overall earnings derived from ordinary jobs during the first 5 years after entry into unemployment. The reason is that program participation also tends to increase the duration of the overall job search period (which includes the program period). Given that ALMP also involves some administrative costs, this implies that it might be difficult to defend the programs from a cost–benefit point of view when considering the impacts on subsequent employment performance only. However, many of the program activities (in fact, around 60% in our data) involve some form of subsidized employment. The condition for a simple 5-year cost–benefit analysis to deliver a favorable result is that the economic value of subsidized work is, on average, at least 35% of the participants’ predicted earnings from non-subsidized work.

An important UI system parameter is the maximum duration by which job seekers are allowed to claim benefits without being forced into some form of activity. We have found that the determination of this parameter involves a number of tradeoffs. It is clearly the case that the longer benefits can be claimed without activity requirements, the higher is the reservation wage and longer is the time a typical job seeker uses to find a job. However, this is not only waste of time. Job search is a productive activity, and expected earnings derived from the first job match increase by as much as 13% during the first half year of job search. Moreover, generous job search conditions imply that fewer unemployment spells are terminated without a job being found at all. Choosiness about what jobs to accept declines significantly during the months just prior to UI exhaustion. This is mirrored in a 50% rise in the job hazard as well as in a 10% decline in the level of accepted earnings, ceteris paribus. An important caveat to our conclusion regarding the effectiveness of job search is that our model does not take into account the possibility of on-the-job search. Instead of using, say, six months to find a high-quality job, unemployed job seekers may choose a strategy of accepting the first available job offer, and then continue searching for a better match. Our model is not designed to evaluate such a strategy as an alternative to the strategy of searching for a high-quality job directly. Robustness results reported in Section 5 indicate, however, that accepting some part-time work while continue registering as underemployed job seeker, may raise the probability of subsequently finding acceptable full-time work. Participation in labor market programs also involves some tradeoffs. There is initially an adverse unemployment lock-in effect that needs to be measured against the apparently favorable human capital effects that come into play when the program has lasted for some time and/or is completed. On average, our findings suggest that program participation causes a 1.2 month increase in overall unemployment duration (including the participation period). However, it also causes a 2 percentage point increase in the probability that the unemployment spell eventually ends with a job, and it raises expected earnings by 2.5%. Nevertheless, in terms of total earnings generated during the five year period after entry into unemployment, we find that the adverse unemployment duration effect dominates the favorable employment and earnings effects. In addition, programs are costly to administer. Hence, if we consider the time spent in program as being without economic value other than through the earnings it potentially generates later on, a cost–benefit calculation is bound to conclude that the programs are not worth their price. However, many programs (around 60%) involve some form of subsidized employment. If we assume that subsidized work has an economic value of at least 35% of non-subsidized work and abstract from general equilibrium effects, the cost–benefit analysis over a 5-year period comes out with a favorable conclusion. We conclude that in order to justify the high level of labor market program activity in Norway one cannot focus exclusively on programs as a means to promote the participants' human capital and later employment careers. The most important benefits of ALMP's actually seem to come from two other sources. First, they offset the moral hazard problems embedded in unemployment insurance systems. Activity requirements effectively reduce the leisure associated with being a UI claimant and, hence, encourages active job search and discourages excessive “choosiness”. Although we have shown in this paper that the latter of these effects implies a reduction in the level of accepted earnings from the first job, a quick entry into ordinary employment may provide a stepping stone towards better paid jobs. Second, active programs represent an alternative way of exploiting the “waiting time” until an ordinary job can be found. Many program participants contribute directly to the production of valuable goods and services, and a short increase in overall unemployment duration (including the participation period) may be considered a price worth paying for this benefit.