This paper examines the allocation of heterogeneous workers across sectors of an economy in which workers are able to direct their search towards particular firms. We find that search frictions, in addition to causing unemployment, may result in an inefficient allocation of labor. This result arises because of the interaction between the investment decisions of firms and the search decisions of workers. Despite constant returns to scale in both the matching and production functions, this interaction can generate multiple equilibria. The existence of multiple equilibria is shown to depend crucially on the direction of comparative advantage.

Abraham, Arpad / Carceles-Poveda , Eva / Cavalcanti, Tiago / Kambourov, Gueorgui / Lambertini, Luisa / Ruhl, Kim / Tavares, Jose
The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics
1 Issue per year
IMPACT FACTOR 2011: 0.321
Issues
Volume 13 (2013)
Volume 12 (2012)
Volume 11 (2011)
Volume 10 (2010)
Volume 9 (2009)
Volume 8 (2008)
Volume 7 (2007)
Volume 6 (2006)
Volume 5 (2005)
Volume 4 (2004)
Volume 3 (2003)
Volume 2 (2002)
Volume 1 (2001)
Most Downloaded Articles
- Comparing Wealth Effects: The Stock Market versus the Housing Market by Case, Karl E./ Quigley, John M. and Shiller, Robert J.
- Who Gets the Credit? And Does It Matter? Household vs. Firm Lending Across Countries by Beck, Thorsten/ Büyükkarabacak, Berrak/ Rioja, Felix K. and Valev, Neven T.
- Monetary and Macroprudential Policy Rules in a Model with House Price Booms by Kannan, Prakash/ Rabanal, Pau and Scott, Alasdair M.
- Is Discretionary Fiscal Policy in Japan Effective? by Rafiq, Sohrab
- In search of lost time: the neoclassical synthesis by De Vroey, Michel and Duarte, Pedro Garcia
The Allocation of Labor and Endogenous Search Decisions
Lawrence Uren1
1University of Melbourne, luren@unimelb.edu.au
Citation Information: Topics in Macroeconomics. Volume 6, Issue 1, Pages 1–31, ISSN (Online) 1534-5998, DOI: 10.2202/1534-5998.1424, June 2006
Publication History:
- Published Online:
- 2006-06-26
Keywords: search decisions; multiple equilibria; labor market frictions


















Comments (0)