TY - JOUR AU - Neumark, David TI - Youth Labor Markets in the U.S.: Shopping Around vs. Staying Put JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 6581 PY - 1998 Y2 - May 1998 DO - 10.3386/w6581 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6581 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6581.pdf N1 - Author contact info: David Neumark Department of Economics University of California, Irvine 3151 Social Science Plaza Irvine, CA 92697 Tel: 949-824-8496 Fax: 949/824-2182 E-Mail: dneumark@uci.edu AB - The need for school-to-work programs or other means of increasing early job market stability is predicated on the view that the chaotic' nature of youth labor markets in the U.S. is costly because workers drift from one job to another without developing skills, behavior, or other characteristics that in turn lead to higher adult earnings. However, there is also ample evidence that workers receive positive returns to job shopping. This paper asks whether youths in unstable or dead-end jobs early in their careers suffer adverse labor market consequences as adults. In particular, it accounts for the endogenous determination of early job stability as a response to job match quality which may also influence adult wages using labor market conditions in the early years in the labor market as instrumental variables for the job stability experienced during those years. The instrumental variables estimates generally point to substantial positive effects of early job stability on adult wages. ER -