NEW MICROFOUNDATIONS FOR THE AGGREGATE MATCHING FUNCTION*

Empirical studies of the aggregate labor market matching function have favored a Cobb–Douglas functional form, for which there are no microfoundations in the existing literature. I present a new model for the matching process, based on a “telephone‐line” Poisson queuing process, which, unlike other microeconomic approaches, can be integrated directly into standard theoretical search models. This implies a CES matching function, approximately Cobb–Douglas when search costs are approximately linear. The model allows empirical estimates of matching function parameters to be interpreted in terms of the costs and benefits of search.     

Vacancy durations - a model for employer's search

This paper investigates a Dutch data set on vacancy durations and numbers of applicants to enquire employers' search strategies. A nonsequential search process assumes that most vacancies are filled from a pool of applicants, which is formed shortly after the posting of the vacancy. The time spent on recruiting applicants and the duration of the selection process are estimated with a proportional hazard model, via the arrival and attrition rates of applicants.     

Branching bandits: a sequential search process with correlated pay-offs

This paper presents a model of a sequential search process for the best outcome of many multi-stage projects. The branching structure of the search environment is such that the payoffs to various actions are correlated; nevertheless, it is shown that the optimal strategy is given by a simple reservation price rule.     

开放式情境下创新搜索、网络能力与创新绩效关系研究

在开放式情境下，企业通过创新搜索获得外部资源是提升企业创新绩效的重要手段，但创新搜索如何影响创新绩效的过程机理仍然不明确。基于创新搜索理论和网络能力理论，构建了创新搜索、网络能力和创新绩效三者之间作用关系理论模型，并以江浙沪地区183家制造企业为样本进行实证研究。结果表明，创新搜索深度和宽度以及网络能力均与企业创新绩效存在显著正相关关系；创新搜索的深度与宽度提升了企业网络能力，并通过网络能力进一步促进企业创新绩效提升，网络能力在创新搜索深度、宽度与创新绩效之间起完全中介作用；搜索宽度对网络能力的影响比对搜索深度的影响更大。     

权变视角下知识搜索平衡与企业创新绩效关系研究

基于组织双元性理论,探讨知识搜索平衡与企业创新绩效的关系,并进一步考察环境动态性和环境竞争性的调节作用。基于苏南地区158家企业问卷调查数据展开实证研究,结果表明：知识搜索联合平衡正向影响企业创新绩效,环境动态性在其中起负向调节作用;知识搜索匹配平衡正向影响企业创新绩效,环境竞争性在其中起正向调节作用。     

Measuring the efficiency of search engines: an application of data envelopment analysis

This paper adopted the data envelopment analysis (DEA) method to investigate the efficiency of several search engines. A query search on a search engine is modelled as a production process. The input and output vectors are defined and measured accordingly. We studied seven engines, Alta Vista, Excite, Hotbot, Lycos, Infoseek, Open Text, and WebCrawler and found that Alta Vista, Excite, Infoseek, and WebCrawler are efficient but the other three are not. Possible efficiency improvements are calculated.     

Immigrant job search assimilation in Canada

Immigrant assimilation is a major issue in many countries. While most of the literature studies assimilation through a human capital framework, we examine the role of job search assimilation. To do so, we estimate an equilibrium search model of immigrants operating in the same labour market as natives, where newly arrived immigrants have lower job offer arrival rates than natives but can acquire the same arrival rates according to a stochastic process. Using Canadian panel data, we find substantial differences in job offer arrival and destruction rates between natives and immigrants that are able to account for three quarters of the observed earnings gap. The estimates imply that immigrants take on average 13 years to acquire the native search parameters. Due to immigrants facing much lower on‐the‐job offer arrival rates than natives, the model predicts that earnings growth through job search is minimal for immigrants prior to their job search assimilation.     

COMMITMENT AND COSTLY SIGNALING IN DECENTRALIZED MARKETS

I propose a search model of a decentralized market with asymmetric information in which sellers are unable to commit to asking prices announced ex ante. Relaxing the commitment assumption prevents sellers from using price posting as a signaling device to direct buyers' search. Private information about the gains from trade and inefficient entry on the demand side then contribute to market illiquidity. Endogenous sorting among costly marketing platforms can facilitate the search process by segmenting the market to alleviate information frictions. Seemingly irrelevant but incentive compatible listing fees are implementable provided that the market is not already sufficiently active.     

On the Efficiency of Job Search with Social Networks

This paper provides a simple matching model in which unemployed workers and employers can be matched together through social networks and through more efficient, and also more costly, methods. In this framework, decentralized decisions to utilize social networks in the job search process can be inefficient and give rise to multiple equilibria. More precisely, in a decentralized equilibrium, social networks can be overutilized, with respect to an efficient allocation, in some circumstances and underutilized in others. Moreover, the existence of different job search methods can give rise to a higher job search intensity than the efficient one. This is in sharp contrast with the standard result, derived in matching models, according to which search intensity is always too low if not efficient. Finally, in the presence of different job search methods, conditional unemployment benefits hikes, which can be used as a coordination device to improve welfare when individuals.     

Culture-related differences in process efficiency in corporations as a competitive factor

This paper focuses on cultural influences on the effectiveness of organizational processes in companies. At this time, there is a predominant emphasis on culture-related differences of processes and workflows in companies in the main body of articles on cross-cultural management research. This paper proposes an extension of these research efforts in that case that the different efficiencies of these processes, resulting from cultural influences, should be examined in more detail. Based on the beginnings of organizational theory and with practical examples, it has been already verified that cultural influences shape organizational structures as well as organizational processes. This kind of fact should lead to the assumption that these cultural influences should also create differences in their efficiency, depending on what kind of culture the companies are. These differences in efficiency can be regarded as opportunities for success from which further competitive advantages can be derived. As that the examination of differences in efficiency of processes is still a rarity in the field of cross-cultural management research this should be developed further.     

Equilibrium unemployment, search behaviour and unemployment persistency

Unemployment persistency and high equilibrium unemployment isoften assumed to be caused by rigidities and low search efficiencyin the labour market, especially in European welfare stateswith generous income replacement schemes. These arguments aretested on data from Sweden, an old welfare state with a longperiod of full employment that has changed into a situationwith high unemployment. Data show a clear and very strong unemploymentduration dependency, but it is not possible to prove that thisis a result of low employability among the long-term unemployed.Getting a job is most of all associated with relative qualifications,recall expectations and local labour market conditions, andnot with search behaviour or high wage demands. It is arguedthat unemployment duration when unemployment is high can bestbe understood as a selection process rather than a search process,and that econometric estimations of equilibrium unemploymentare too pessimistic about the potential for an expansive economicpolicy. It is also argued that an active labour market policyis a more efficient compliment to such a policy than changesin income replacement ratios.     

Search practices in the early phase of the innovation process and ambidexterity: testing a sample of high-tech companies

This paper investigates the relationship between the practices put in place by firms to search for local and distant knowledge, ambidexterity and firms’ performances; attention is then focused on analysing the antecedents and consequences of ambidexterity in the search phase of the innovation process. Structural equation modelling has been used in order to test these hypotheses in a sample of Italian high-tech companies. Results of the study show a positive impact of the practices used by firm to search for distant knowledge on both ambidexterity and firms’ performances as well. Implications of these results are discussed in the paper.     

Sequencing,timing and filling rates of recruitment channels

This paper analyses the recruitment process by which employers adjust their search strategies. The focus is, in particular, on the sequence and timing of recruitment channels. Two search strategies are identified. One strategy is to advertise a vacancy, and to form a pool of candidates by activating subsequent recruitment channels such that candidates are added to the pool. An alternative strategy used by employers is to start searching via informal channels, consider applicants at arrival and continue their search along a new recruitment channel if no suitable candidates show up. Results suggest that when informal personal contacts are available to the employer, this ‘switching of channel’ strategy is preferred. Moreover, the results of this paper are consistent with the view that informal search methods are potentially more efficient than using an advertisement and forming a pool of applicants, in particular when vital positions in firms have to be filled.     

Search frictions, market power, and long-run growth

This paper embeds product market search in an Ak growth model to study the effects of search frictions on market structure, capital accumulation, and long-run growth. The basic hypothesis is that search frictions, in giving rise to market power, result in higher prices and lower output levels. The falling demand for capital stemming from firms cutting back output then lowers the interest rate, dampening capital accumulation and slowing down growth. A decline in search frictions sets the process in reverse, eventually speeding up growth through the change in market structure. In the meantime, the stock market values of firms could fall.     

Bargaining, search, and outside options

This paper studies a two-sided incomplete information bargaining model between a seller and a buyer. The buyer has an outside option, which is modeled as a sequential search process during which he can choose to return to bargaining at any time. Two cases are considered: In Regime I, both agents have symmetric information about the search parameters. We find that, in contrast to bargaining with complete information, the option to return to bargaining is not redundant in equilibrium. However, the no-delay result still holds. In Regime II, where agents have asymmetric information about the outside option, delay is possible. The solution characterizes the parameters for renegotiation and those for search with no return to the bargaining table.     

Credit mismatch and breakdown

This paper studies the phenomenon of mismatch in a decentralized credit market where borrowers and lenders must engage in costly search to establish credit relationships. Our dynamic general equilibrium framework integrates incentive based informational frictions with a matching process highlighted by (i) borrowers' endogenous market entry and exit decision (entry frictions) and (ii) time and resource costs necessary to locate credit opportunities (search frictions). A key feature of the incentive compatible loan contract negotiated between borrowers and lenders is the interaction of informational frictions (in the form of moral hazard) with entry and search frictions. We find that the removal of entry barriers can eliminate incentive-based equilibrium credit rationing. More generally, entry and incentive frictions are important in understanding the extent of credit rationing and credit mismatch, while search and incentive frictions are important for understanding credit market breakdown.     

Learning to choose a commodity-money: Carl Menger's theory of imitation and the search monetary framework

This paper studies Carl Menger's theory of the emergence of a commodity money. We propose an interpretation of Menger's learning by imitation process based on the search theoretical formal framework. We show that there exists a tension between the importance of intrinsic properties of commodities and the pure conventional self-fulfilling expectations of agents. This confirms the role of imitation in the emergence of monetary equilibria in search theory. We conclude that Menger's approach may support the idea that the fundamental property of a commodity-money (namely its great liquidity) is the result of its emergence process and not necessarily of its original intrinsic properties.     

跨界搜寻如何促进企业管理创新——认知柔性与吸收能力的作用

跨界搜寻作为企业突破思维定式、激励创新的关键力量,得到学界越来越多的关注。同时,认知柔性作为推动企业成长的重要因素,在跨界搜寻促进管理创新过程中起承上启下的作用。因此,基于开放式创新理论,从跨界搜寻视角出发,对认知柔性与管理创新影响机理进行探讨,并收集287份样本数据进行实证研究。结果显示：科技驱动型与市场驱动型跨界搜寻对探索式和利用式管理创新均具有正向影响;认知柔性在跨界搜寻与管理创新间具有中介效应;吸收能力正向调节跨界搜寻与认知柔性的关系。     

Minimum wage,on-the-job search and employment: On the sectoral and aggregate equilibrium effect of the mandatory minimum wage

We study the impact of a minimum wage in a segmented labor market in which workers are at different stages of their careers. At the end of a learning-by-doing period, workers paid the minimum wage quit “bad jobs” for better-paying “good jobs”, following an on-the-job search process with endogenous search intensity. A rise in the minimum wage reduces “bad jobs” creation and prompts workers to keep their “bad jobs” by reducing on-the-job search intensity. The ambiguous impact on unqualified employment replicates and explains the findings of several empirical studies. However, a minimum wage rise reduces overall employment and output.     

数字化转型对后发追赶的影响研究——基于知识搜索的调节作用

数字化转型在后发追赶过程中发挥着重要作用，但现有研究对于选择何种数字化转型模式、通过何种方式实现后发追赶并未给出明确的解答。基于309家后发企业样本，实证分析了数字化转型对后发追赶的影响，并探讨了知识搜索在上述关系中的调节作用。研究发现，制造过程数字化和商业模式数字化均对后发追赶有促进作用；反应型知识搜索强化了制造过程数字化与后发追赶的关系，却削弱商业模式数字化对后发追赶的作用，而前瞻型知识搜索的调节作用与之相反；反应/前瞻双元型知识搜索仅增强了制造过程数字化对后发追赶的作用。研究在丰富数字化转型和知识搜索理论的同时，为后发企业选择有效的转型策略并实现后发追赶提供了借鉴。