Siting (Estee) Lu (University of Edinburgh) will present “Costly Job Search with Inattentive Workers” on March 27th, 2025, at 3:00 PM (CET) via Microsoft Teams.
Join the seminar: Meeting Link
Abstract:
Labour market mismatch can arise from workers having limited attention. I propose a Generalized Partially Directed Search model, extending on existing literature by allowing inattentive workers to have diverse priors and heterogeneous attention costs. I show that mismatch can be inherited from bias in workers’ default search strategies, and heterogeneous attention costs could contribute to greater variability in the equilibrium outcomes. I also explore equilibrium multiplicity that was not adequately analyzed in previous studies. Equilibria where workers adopt different application strategies may generate both higher market efficiency and lower monopsony power than when workers employ the same application strategies. This information-theoretic approach to model job search offers new policy insights on the basis of attention.