Search Incentives Research Articles

Start-up Search Costs

Workhorse economic models used for studying the market impacts of search frictions assume constant search costs: individuals pay the same cost to obtain price information each time they search. This paper provides evidence on a new form of search costs: start-up costs. Exploiting a natural experiment in retail gasoline, we document how a temporary, large exogenous shock to consumers’ search incentives leads to a substantial, permanent increase in price search. A standard search model fails to explain such history dependence in search, while it follows directly from a model with a one-time up-front cost to start searching. (JEL D83, L13, L81)

A quantitative theory of time-consistent unemployment insurance

During recessions, the U.S. government substantially increases the duration of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits through multiple extensions. Benefit extensions increase UI coverage and lead to higher average consumption of unemployed workers, but the expectation of an extension may reduce unemployed worker’s job search incentives and lead to higher future unemployment. We show that benefit extensions in recessions arise naturally when the government forgoes prior commitment and makes discretionary UI policies. We endogenize a time-consistent non-commitment UI policy in a stochastic equilibrium search model, and use the model to quantitatively evaluate the benefit extensions implemented during the Great Recession. Switching to the (Ramsey) commitment policy would reduce the unemployment by 2.9 percentage points with small welfare gains.

Search and Wholesale Price Discrimination

AbstractFirms often choose not to post prices in wholesale markets, and buyers must incur costs to discover prices. Inspired by evidence of customized pricing (e.g., some customers pay up to 70% more than others) and search costs, I estimate a search model to study how personalized pricing impacts efficiency in a wholesale market. I find that price discrimination decreases total surplus by 11.6% and increases the sellers' profits by up to 52.1%. These effects are partially explained by price discrimination softening competition through a decrease in search incentives, illustrating how price discrimination may magnify the efficiency costs of search frictions.

The agency costs of on-the-job search

This paper studies how workers' on-the-job search influences optimal incentives in organizations. We analyze a principal-agent model in which the agent multitasks between working for the principal and searching for other job opportunities. The agent partly uses on-the-job search to improve his bargaining position within the relationship. We show that the optimal contract may feature both excessive performance bonuses as well as efficiency wages. Both measures reduce the agent's search incentives, but do not completely eliminate rent-seeking under the optimal contract. On-the-job search therefore generates agency costs. The model suggests a new rational for excessive incentive pay and efficiency wages.

The role of anticipated emotions and the value of information in determining sequential search incentives

We define a novel information acquisition model that accounts explicitly for the influence of positive and negative anticipated emotions in the evaluation and selection incentives of decision makers (DMs). The model focuses on the value assigned by the DMs to the information being acquired and its capacity to prevent regrettable decisions within a forward-looking sequential environment. We introduce a novel definition of value of information accounting for the two main uses that DMs can derive from it, namely, verifying the optimality or suboptimality of a potential decision and preventing the regret that may arise from a suboptimal decision. In particular, DMs would regret a decision whenever rejecting [accepting] an alternative that should have actually been accepted [rejected]. Our formal information acquisition model allows to account for the subjective relative importance assigned by the DMs to the verification and regret value of information. Moreover, we illustrate how the incentives defining the sequential information retrieval process of DMs are determined by the relative width of the domains on which the different characteristics describing the alternatives are defined.

Startup Search Costs

Workhorse economic models used for studying the market impacts of search frictions assume constant search costs: individuals pay the same cost to obtain price information each time they search. This paper provides evidence on a new form of search costs: startup costs. Exploiting a natural experiment in retail gasoline, we document how a temporary, large exogenous shock to consumers' search incentives leads to a substantial, permanent increase in price search. A standard search model fails to explain such history-dependence in search, while it follows directly from a model with a one-time up-front cost to start searching.

Does equity analyst research lack rigour and objectivity? Evidence from conference call questions and research notes

Doubts have been raised about the rigour and objectivity of sell-side analysts’ research due to institutional structures that promote pro-management behaviour. However, research in psychology stresses the importance of controlling for biases in individuals’ inherent cognitive processing behaviour when drawing conclusions about their propensity to undertake careful scientific analysis. Using social cognition theory, we predict that the rigour and objectivity evident in analyst research is more pronounced following unexpected news in general and unexpected bad news in particular. We evaluate this prediction against the null hypothesis that analyst research consistently lacks rigour and objectivity to maintain good relations with management. Using U.S. firm earnings surprises as our conditioning event, we examine the content of analysts’ conference call questions and research notes to assess the properties of their research. We find that analysts’ notes and conference call questions display material levels of rigour and objectivity when earnings news is unexpectedly positive, and that these characteristics are more pronounced in response to unexpectedly poor earnings news. Results are consistent with analysts’ innate cognitive processing response counteracting institutional considerations when attributional search incentives are strong. Exploratory analysis suggests that studying verbal and written outputs provides a more complete picture of analysts’ work.

A Quantitative Theory of Time-Consistent Unemployment Insurance

During recessions, the U.S. government substantially increases the duration of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits through multiple extensions. This paper seeks to understand the incentives driving these increases. Because of the trade-off between insurance and job search incentives, the classic time-inconsistency problem arises. This paper endogenizes a time-consistent UI policy in a stochastic equilibrium search model, where a government without commitment to future policies chooses the UI benefit level and expected duration each period. A longer benefit duration increases unemployed workers' consumption but reduces job search, leading to higher future unemployment. Quantitatively, the model rationalizes most of the variations in benefit duration during the Great Recession. We use the framework to evaluate the effects of the 2009-2013 benefit extensions on unemployment and welfare.

Does Equity Analyst Research Lack Rigor and Objectivity? Evidence from Conference Call Questions and Research Notes

Research questions the rigor and objectivity of analysts’ research due to the institutional structures in which they operate (Fogarty and Rogers, 2005 Accounting, Organisations and Society). However, insights from psychology highlight the need to condition this conclusion on the incentives for attributional search. Based on social cognition theory, we test whether the degree of diligence and criticality evident in analyst research is higher (lower) for negative (non-negative) schema-discrepant events. We evaluate this prediction against the null hypothesis that analyst research consistently lacks rigor and objectivity. We use earnings surprises as our schema-discrepant conditioning event, and examine the content of analysts’ conference call questions and research notes to assess the properties of their research. We find that levels of rigor and objectivity are statistically and economically higher for research conducted in response to negative earnings surprises. Findings are consistent with analysts’ innate cognitive processing response counteracting institutional considerations when attributional search incentives are strong. Results also reveal non-trivial levels of rigor and objectivity in response to non-negative schema-discrepant earnings news. Differences in the properties of analysts’ work are also evident for spoken and written modalities.

Benefit Reentitlement Conditions in Unemployment Insurance Schemes

Unemployment insurance schemes include conditions on past employment history as part of the eligibility conditions. This aspect is often neglected in the literature which primarily focuses on benefit levels and benefit duration. In a search-matching framework we show that benefit duration and employment requirements are substitute instruments in affecting job search incentives and thus gross unemployment. We analyse the optimal design of the unemployment insurance system (benefit levels, duration and employment requirements) under a utilitarian social welfare function. Simulations show that a higher insurance motive captured by more risk aversion implies higher benefit generosity and more lax employment requirements but also shortened benefit duration.

A Repeated Principal-Agent Model with On-the-Job Search

This paper analyzes how on-the-job search (OJS) by an agent impacts the moral hazard problem in a repeated principal-agent relationship. OJS is found to constitute a source of agency costs because efficient search incentives require that the agent receives all gains from trade. Further, the optimal incentive contract with OJS matches the design of empirically observed compensation contracts more accurately than models that ignore OJS. In particular, the optimal contract entails excessive performance pay plus efficiency wages. Efficiency wages reduce the opportunity costs of work effort and hence serve as a complement to bonuses. Thus, the model offers a novel explanation for the use of efficiency wages. When allowing for renegotiation, the model generates wage and turnover dynamics that are consistent with empirical evidence. I argue that the model contributes to explaining the concomitant rise in the use of performance pay and in competition for high-skill workers during the last three decades.

Effort Incentives and On-the-Job Search: An Alternative Role for Efficiency Wages in Employment Contracts

We study an infinitely repeated principal-agent relationship with on-the-job search. On-the-job search is modeled as a dimension of the agent's effort vector that has no effect on output, but raises his future outside option. The agent's incentives to search are increasing in the degree to which a higher outside option improves his gains from trade. Search also increases the agent's cost of effort thus generating an effort-substitution problem between work and search effort. We show that the principal can mute search incentives by offering an e fficiency wage contract. Due to effort substitution, e fficiency wages increase the agent's work effort incentives for a given bonus scheme. Thus, effi ciency wages serve as a complement rather than as a substitute to piece rates. Our results provide a new rationale for the use of effi ciency wages as an incentive device and hence greatly extend the set of environments in which e fficiency wages are predicted to be useful as an incentive device. Our findings thus also contribute to the explanation of empirically observed inter-industry variation in the size and composition of worker compensation.

Heterogeneous Workers, Optimal Job Seeking, and Aggregate Labor Market Dynamics

In the United States, the aggregate vacancy-unemployment (V/U) ratio is strongly procyclical, and a large fraction of its adjustment associated with changes in productivity is sluggish. The latter is entirely unexplained by the benchmark homogeneous-agent model of equilibrium unemployment theory. I show that endogenous search and worker-side horizontal heterogeneity in production capacity can be important in accounting for this propagation puzzle. Driven by differences in unemployed and on-the-job seekers' search incentives, the probability that any given firm with a job opening matches with a worker endowed with a comparative advantage in that job exhibits a stage of procyclical slow-moving adjustment. Consequently, so do the expected gains from posting vacancies and, hence, the V/U ratio. The model has channels through which the majority of both the V/U ratio's sluggish-adjustment properties and its elasticity with respect to output per worker can be accounted for.

Job search incentives and job match quality

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.

Heterogeneous Workers, Optimal Job Seeking, and Aggregate Labor Market Dynamics

In the United States, the aggregate vacancy-unemployment (V/U) ratio is strongly procyclical, and a large fraction of its adjustment associated with changes in productivity is sluggish. The latter is entirely unexplained by the benchmark homogeneous-agent model of equilibrium unemployment theory. I show that endogenous search and worker-side horizontal heterogeneity in production capacity can be important in accounting for this propagation puzzle. Driven by differences in unemployed and on-the-job seekers' search incentives, the probability that any given firm with a job opening matches with a worker endowed with a comparative advantage in that job exhibits a stage of procyclical slow-moving adjustment. Consequently, so do the expected gains from posting vacancies and, hence, the V/U ratio. The model has channels through which the majority of both the V/U ratio's sluggish-adjustment properties and its elasticity with respect to output per worker can be accounted for.

Search and Choice in Online Consumer Auctions

Price dispersion in simultaneous online auctions is a puzzle in light of the relatively low search costs required to find the lower price. Much of this price dispersion appears to be due to a lack of switching by bidders between auctions, which in turn could be due to inertia related to search costs. We identify some of the influencing factors through a controlled field experiment involving pairs of simultaneous auctions. Keeping the sellers and the goods sold identical between two auctions, we vary auction design features between and within pairs including shipping cost, open reserve, secret reserve price, and duration, and we provide bidders with incentives to search. We use a choice model that examines individual choice between pairs of simultaneous auctions. We find that within-pair price dispersion is substantial and that prices and auction choice by bidders are indeed related to search costs. We find strong inertia in auction choice and find that this effect significantly interacts with time left in the auction. Although individuals do not always choose a lower-priced auction, they are more likely to do so when search costs are low or search incentives are high.

Training and Search During Unemployment

This paper analyzes unemployment insurance contracts that combine monetary benefits and training. Unemployment insurance trades off the provision of search incentives and insurance against both the temporary loss of income and future losses in earnings due to the decrease in human capital. Human capital falls upon displacement and continuously depreciates during unemployment. Training counters the decrease in human capital, but also changes the willingness of the unemployed to search. I characterize the optimal insurance contract and analyze the optimal timing of consumption and training. Numerical simulations show that if the cost of training is sufficiently low, the human capital of long-term unemployed converges to a unique, positive level. The optimal contract never stops inducing search efforts. In practice, training programs are mainly targeted towards the long-term unemployed. This is optimal only if the fall in human capital upon displacement is small relative to the depreciation rate during unemployment.

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Optimal unemployment insurance in an estimated job search model with savings

This paper estimates a job search model with savings on Danish micro data that include observations on wealth and wages. Controlling for extensive observed and unobserved worker characteristics heterogeneity, the estimation relates observed unemployment spells to the model implied hazard rate for each worker. The model estimates are sensible and fit the data well. Optimal UI policy is determined in the estimated model as a trade-off between insurance provision and distortion of search incentives. The analysis emphasizes an important policy sensitivity to the interest rate and the importance of including transitional dynamics in the analysis.

BANK COMPETITION AND CONSUMER SEARCH OVER CREDIT CARD INTEREST RATES

This article models bank competition facing consumers with different search incentives and finds that consumers with higher credit card balances have lower interest rates given their risk class due to their greater search effort. It also finds that a default history leads to higher interest rates. The equilibrium interest rate corresponding to risk type and motive (borrowing versus convenience/transactions) is derived theoretically, and the determinants of the interest rate are estimated using an original data set. Endogeneity of default is handled with a two-equation system.(JEL D14, D12, D11)