Searching for Better Prospects: Endogenizing Falling Job Tenure and Private Pension Coverage

Leora Friedberg, Michael T. Owyang, Tara M. Sinclair

NBER Working Paper No. 11808
Issued in December 2005
NBER Program(s):   AG   LS

Recent declines in job tenure have coincided with a shift away from traditional defined benefit (DB) pensions, which reward long tenure. Recent 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. Reduced search costs can, under fairly general conditions, lower the value of deterring search and the use of DB pensions.

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Published: Leora Friedberg & Michael Owyang & Tara Sinclair, 2006. "Searching For Better Prospects: Endogenizing Falling Job Tenure and Private Pension Coverage," Topics in Economic Analysis & Policy, Berkeley Electronic Press, vol. 6(1), pages 1500-1500.

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