Cees Gorter

Job Search and Commuting Time

We structurally analyze a job-search model for unemployed individuals that allows jobs to have different wage/commuting-time combinations. The structural parameter of interest is the degree of willingness to pay for commuting time. We use a unique dataset containing responses by unemployed individuals on the optimal search strategy to estimate this parameter without the need to rely on functional-form assumptions. We address specification errors in the model and measurement errors in the data. The results identify types of individuals who have a high disutility of commuting time.

Estimating the Marginal Willingness to Pay for Commuting

With informational frictions on the labor market, hedonic wage regressions provide biased estimates of the willingness to pay for job attributes. We show that a recent theoretical result, which states that the variation in job durations provides a basis for obtaining good estimates, can be generalized to a wide class of search models. We apply this result by estimating the marginal willingness of employed workers to pay for commuting, using Dutch longitudinal data. The average willingness to pay for one hour commuting is estimated to equal almost half of the hourly wage rate.

Residential mobility and local housing-market differences

The authors extend previous literature on variations in mobility rates across local housing markets by examining the linkage of mobility rates at the household level to the structure of local housing markets. The results suggest that residential mobility rates differ widely across local housing markets, substantiating the view that residential relocation is intimately intertwined with conditions at the local level. Local housing-market conditions also have different effects on mobility rates for renters and owner-occupiers. The results suggest that variation in residential mobility rates across housing markets can be in part explained by level of urbanization, the tenure structure, the degree of government intervention, and the size of the housing market. Remarkably, these differences in local housing markets cannot be seen to be related to housing-market features only. The results suggest that these differences can also be attributed to the behavior or attitude of households with respect to housing.

In Search of Ethnic Entrepreneurship Opportunities in the City: A Comparative Policy Study

The rapidly rising inflow of foreign migrants confronts policymakers with many socio-economic problems. The negative externalities of uncontrolled immigration are well known and often hard to cope with. Recent years have seen the appearance of many policy initiatives based on self-reliance principles for ethnic groups. Against this background, ethnic entrepreneurship has become a popular strategy as it stimulates and encourages migrants to look after themselves with only limited support from the government: such policies are becoming increasingly important in many large cities. In addition to the conventional educational support and training programmes, such strategies need to implement policies aimed at self-employment. An emphasis on ethnic entrepreneurship is an attempt to exploit the economic potential and opportunities of foreign migrants, instead of focusing on the problems which minorities encounter when entering the labour market. In ethnic entrepreneurship this potential can be utilised in a creative way, especially if well-organised projects and initiatives are set up. The authors compare various assistance programmes and urban policies in several European cities, which are aimed at favouring ethnic entrepreneurship, with the aim of drawing lessons for effective labour-market policies. Their approach is to employ a systematic information base concerning self-employment strategies in the cities under investigation. A newly developed comparative statistical method for categorical information, namely, rough-set analysis, is used in order to identify critical success factors. The results suggest that utilisation of social networks is most helpful in enhancing self-employment among ethnic minorities. The authors offer some lessons for the establishment of sociocultural and ethnic networks, for strategies for improving training and education, and for improving access to facilities and financial resources.

The attraction force of out-of-town shopping malls: a case study on run-fun shopping in the Netherlands

Recent years have witnessed a shift from central urban locations of shopping facilities to extra‐urban locations. This trend, which has become a prominent one in North America, is also increasingly observed in several European countries (e.g. France and Germany). The Netherlands has always had a discouraging policy for out‐of‐town shopping malls. Recently, however, a new experiment has been implemented, namely in the Greater Rotterdam area. This paper deals with the potential competition of such an out‐of‐town shopping mall in the retail sector with respect to the inner‐city of Rotterdam. Based on a survey questionnaire, this paper aims to identify the motives of visitors and buyers for such large‐scale shopping facilities. Analytical research into the nature (with a main distinction according to run and fun shopping) and the spatial market area of a particular shopping centre located in Greater Rotterdam (Alexandrium) shows that the anticipated policy goals are met, in the sense that the shopping mall concerned turns into a regional market for run shopping purposes rather than into a competing fun shopping centre.

The impact of employers' recruitment behaviour on the allocation of vacant jobs to unemployed job seekers

This paper is focused on the allocation of vacant jobs to job seekers from a demand side perspective by studying the recruitment behaviour of employers. A model is developed to analyze the role of search and selection methods of employers as determinants of the probability that an unemployed person will be hired for a certain type of job. In an empirical application for the Dutch labour market, we have examined the effect of employers recruitment behaviour on the allocation of vacant jobs to employed, unemployed and school-leaving job seekers.We find that job requirements for the applicants with respect to work experience are the most important determinant of the probability that an unemployed person will be selected to fill a vacant job. In addition, the use of advertisements by employers for jobs requiring high skill levels does also have a significant effect.

Spatial Aspects of Recruitment Behaviour of Firms: an empirical investigation

It is widely recognized that employers hiring standards and spatial search radius are closely linked to their recruitment decisions. A strategy to identify the right people in the right place may save firms a substantial amount of effort and financial resources. Unfortunately, economic theory has often neglected this item when dealing with spatial search and recruitment issues. In this paper firms recruitment strategies and channels of recruitment are addressed in relation to the spatial search radius for new employees. The spatial radius is linked to the employers attempt to convey the vacancy-related information to a targeted group of potential applicants, with a focus on the distribution of the distance between the location of the firm and the place of residence of the hired applicant. In this framework, a new statistical model is developed in order to investigate the impact of different recruitment strategies—which differ with respect to both the spatial search radius and the type of information used—on the probability of a match between the vacant position and an applicant located at a given distance from the firm. The model is implemented and tested by means of an extensive micro data set on the recruitment behaviour of Dutch firms. It is found that job requirements with respect to educational level and required working experience are important elements in the recruitment procedure, as they significantly affect the spatial dimension of search. Moreover, the use of interactive information through informal communication channels seems to be effective for short-distance matches, thus suggesting the relevance of local contact networks.

Search Channel Use and Firms' Recruitment Behaviour

In the present paper we examine the impact of firms attitudes towards key aspects of the recruitment process on the number of search channels activated. Furthermore, we address the issue of the timing of the activation of additional search channels. It is found that firms that attach importance to search effort and to applicants motivation generally use more search channels than firms that do not attach any importance to the aforementioned aspects of recruitment. Furthermore, it appears that employers generally use fewer search channels for permanent positions. However, firms with a personnel department which are hiring for a vacancy requiring specific work experience usually activate multiple search channels. Finally, the choice of advertising as the first search channel appears to negatively affect the chances of considering additional channels.

Issues in recruitment strategies: an economic perspective

In the last two decades the economic literature has devoted significant attention to the mechanisms behind firms recruitment strategies as a possible way of reducing (un)employment problems. At the workfloor many efforts have also been made by firms to develop strategies that both alleviate conflicts with employees and at the same time lead to acceptable levels of productivity. This effort has resulted in the broad acceptance of the personnel management function in the firm. Examines how successful this approach has been by focusing on the gap between practice and theory in recruitment, by investigating the extent to which and the way in which experiences and findings from actual recruitment (personnel management) have been incorporated in economic theory. Gives an overview of findings on recruitment and selection strategies of firms, with a particular emphasis on economic motives.

Retail investments by real estate investment trusts: a comparative analysis of local retail returns for the United States

This exploratory paper examines the localsuccess conditions and the region-specificorientation of real estate investment trusts(REITs). After a concise overview of thehistory of REITs in the USA, the criticalperformance factors of retail REITs areaddressed by investigating the empiricalrelationship between local retail rents and aselected set of local explanatory factors. Asequential regression method is deployed toidentify the most prominent, statisticallysignificant variables and to create a rankingof most promising metropolitan areas from aninvestors perspective.