Education, ranking, and competition for jobs

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Moen, ER
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF LABOR ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0734-306X
• DOI: 10.1086/209936
• 发表日期: 1999
• 页码: 694-723
• 关键词: matching model; unemployment; search; equilibrium; EFFICIENCY; duration; wages

摘要

Study workers' incentives to invest in general human capital (education) in the presence of search-induced unemployment. Workers queue for jobs, and firms prefer to hire the most productive applicants because of rent sharing. As a result, an unemployed worker's ranking relative to other job seekers will influence his job-finding rate. This creates a rat race, where workers invest in education partly in order to achieve a better ranking. In equilibrium, identical workers may have incentives to diversify in terms of education, and the investments in education may exceed the socially optimal level.