Search Results
Discussion Paper
Wage Pressures in the Labor Market: What Do They Say?
Wage pressures among the newly employed in low-wage service occupations appear to be the result of normal economic forces, likely reflecting demand surges for—and a reluctant supply of—workers in occupations particularly hard hit by pandemic-induced economic shutdowns.
Report
Real-time search in the laboratory and the market
While widely accepted models of labor market search imply a constant reservation wage policy, the empirical evidence strongly suggests that reservation wages decline in the duration of search. This paper reports the results of the first real-time-search laboratory experiment. The controlled environment that subjects face is stationary, and the payoff-maximizing reservation wage is constant. Nevertheless, subjects' reservation wages decline sharply over time. We investigate two hypotheses to explain this decline: 1) searchers respond to the stock of accruing search costs, and 2) searchers ...
Discussion Paper
SCE Labor Market Survey Shows Average Reservation Wage Continues Upward Trend
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s November 2022 SCE Labor Market Survey shows a rise in the average reservation wage—the lowest wage respondents would be willing to accept for a new job—to $73,667, its highest level since the series began in 2014. Respondents’ satisfaction with wage compensation, non-wage benefits, and promotion opportunities at their current job all improved in November compared to July. Regarding expectations, the average expected wage offer (conditional on receiving one) also increased and reached a new high.
Discussion Paper
Wage Pressures in the Labor Market: What Do They Say?
Wage pressures among the newly employed in low-wage service occupations appearto be the result of normal economic forces, likely reflecting demand surges for—and areluctant supply of—workers in occupations particularly hard hit by pandemic-inducedeconomic shutdowns.
Discussion Paper
An Update on the Reservation Wages in the SCE Labor Market Survey
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s July 2024 SCE Labor Market Survey shows a year-over-year increase in the average reservation wage—the lowest wage respondents would be willing to accept for a new job—to $81,147, but a decline from a series’ high of $81,822 in March 2024. In this post, we investigate how the recent dynamics of reservation wages differed across individuals and how reservation wages are related to individuals’ expectations about their future labor market movements.
Journal Article
Wage Pressures in the Labor Market: What Do They Say?
Wage pressures among the newly employed in low-wage service occupations appear to be the result of normal economic forces, likely reflecting demand surges for—and a reluctant supply of—workers in occupations particularly hard hit by pandemic-induced economic shutdowns.