Experimental Study On The Influence Factors Of Job Search Behavior

Taking the job search behavior as the research subject, collecting the primilary data by laboratory experiments, this doctoral dissertation mainly explores the fators which influence the job search behavior. Based on the current research findings, this dissertation mainly consists of three aspects:effects of unemployment subsidy and search cost on search behavior; influence of holding certificate on search behavior; relationships of social network with search behavior.Firstly, we test the effects made by unemployment subsidy and search cost. Based on the foundamental experimental design of job search, we add the subsidy and cost to the experiments. As the experimental results shows, unemployment subsidy and search cost can influence subjects’ reservation wage significantly and also have weak influences on search duration. Besides, unemployment can impove the final incomes greatly. As far as the unemployment subsidy concerned, subjects’ performance are similar with the theoretic predictions, while when take the search cost into account, the performance of subjects are totally different from the theory. The reason for this phenomeno may be that people are apt to passing the search cost on to the wage expection. We hold the ideas that improve the information transfer efficiency, decrease the search cost are benifical for the employment rate and markert efficiency.Secondly, base on the research of traditional fators, we try to find some more valuable things that needed be considered for job search behavior, speciall in the background of China. In recent years, there is a conspicuous phenomenon, thus so called "certificate craze" is very interesting and worth to studied. We design a special treatment of calculate activity to measure the process of obtaining the certificate. Combined with the basic job search treatment, we test the relationship of holding certificate with reservation wage. The results show that there is a stong relationship between holding certificate and reservation wage. Then we run the multiple regressions including some other controlling variables such as risk attitude, disposable personal income, gerder, professional background, the statistic results give direct evidence that holding certificate can increase indivual’s reservation wage. We think that in order to abain the certificate, subjects work hard on this and finally success, this will provide the subjects more regarding jobs and corresponding to this, the possibility of higher income will increase. Furthmore, even obtained certificate does not increase the possibility of higher income job, it will change subjects’ self-cognition, and they are easy to increase their reservation wage. This conclusion has some meanings for the phenomeno of "certificate craze" obtaining certificate is no dount worth to advocate, however, people should not change their reservation wage greatly. Anyway, employment as soon as possible is important.Thirdly, we use the laboratory experiment to study the relationship of social network with job search behavior for the first time in related research field. We extend the job search basic theory by incorporating the social network into the model. Deriving from the model, we develop the research hypothesis and then test the hypothesisi by social network experiment. The experiment results show that, as an approach to gain job information, social network may affect individual behavior significantly. When social network is available for the job seekers, their reservation wage will increase accordingly, and also the search duration will shorten significantly. This conclusion supports the positive effect of social network on individual search process and labor market.Finally, we consider another social network with typical structual, thus complete social network. We study the effects of two internal features of such network on job search behavior respectively, refferd as social distance effect and information disclosure effect. As the social distance subject as concerned, subjects with less social distance do not performance more favorably than subjects with far distance. On the contrary, far social distance improves the degree of helpness among the network. We think there may two possible reasons for this phenomenon; one fator may be described as competitive pressure while another fator is homophily. The result of information disclosure effect shows that when we announced the subjects’ wage levels, which at that point they had accepted along with their counterparts in a social network, the subjects’ average reservation wages increased significantly according to their initial preference levels. However, when this information was not revealed, the reservation wage remained the same despite the availability of the social network. We suggest that the green-eyed monster effect may be significant in explaining these results. Taken together, the evidence suggests that there is green-eyed effect existing among social network. However, there should be some presuppositions of social network. The character of such network make the information needed by nodes seems to be competitive; this is so important that only in this situation subjects’ performance would be influenced by psychology of jealous. This conclusion means that although the social network can provide convenience for job search in many cases, we should not pay much attention on the comparison with members in same social network, since this may change our preference which may be bad for employment. At the same time, related governmental departments should be more cautious for the revealing of job information, especially about the wage information, since such information disclosure may cause the inefficiency of job matching in labor market.