The pricing of job characteristics when markets do not clear: Theory and policy implications

This article examines nonsequential search when jobs vary with respect to nonpecuniary characteristics. In the presence of frictions in the labor market, the equilibrium job distribution need not show evidence of compensating wage differentials. The model also generates several pervasive features of labor markets: unemployment and vacancies, apparent discrimination, and market segmentation. When workers are homogeneous, restrictions on the range of job offers decrease welfare and cannot reduce unemployment. However, when workers have heterogeneous preferences, such restrictions may lower unemployment, and can even lead to a Pareto improvement in welfare. We consider the impact of policies banning discrimination and regulating working conditions.