An Equilibrium Theory of Learning, Search, and Wages
研究了工人对自己求职过程信息不完全的劳动力市场效应，发现搜寻结果传递信息，学习导致工人对求职概率的信念内生异质，为失业时长增加后工资下降提供了理性解释。
We examine the labor market effects of incomplete information about the workers' own job-finding process. Search outcomes convey valuable information, and learning from search generates endogenous heterogeneity in workers' beliefs about their job-finding probability. We characterize this process and analyze its interactions with job creation and wage determination. Our theory sheds new light on how unemployment can affect workers' labor market outcomes and wage determination, providing a rational explanation for discouragement as the consequence of negative search outcomes. In particular, longer unemployment durations are likely to be followed by lower reemployment wages because a worker's beliefs about his job-finding process deteriorate with unemployment duration. Moreover, our analysis provides a set of useful results on dynamic programming with optimal learning. Copyright 2010 The Econometric Society.