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Working Paper 2003-038E

"Searching For Better Prospects: Endogenizing Falling Job Tenure and Private Pension Coverage"
by Leora Friedberg, Michael T. Owyang, and Tara M. Sinclair

Recent declines in job tenure have coincided with a shift away from traditional defined benefit (DB) pensions, which reward long tenure. New evidence also points to an increase in job-to-job movements by workers, and we document gains in relative wages of job-to-job movers over a similar period. We develop a search model in which firms may offer tenure-based contracts like DB pensions to reduce the incidence of costly on-the-job search by workers. Either reduced search costs or an increase in the probability of job matches can, under fairly general conditions, lower the value of deterring search and the use of DB pensions.

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Category > Applied Microeconomics
Author > Michael T. Owyang
Research Papers and Publications: JEL Code > E24
Research Papers and Publications: JEL Code > J32
Research Papers and Publications: JEL Code > J41
Research Papers and Publications: JEL Code > J63
Research Papers and Publications: JEL Code > J64