The Job Search Intensity Supply Curve: How Labor Market Conditions Affect Job Search Effort

Whether individuals search more for work during expansions remains an open question in the literature. Many macro-labor models assume workers search more during expansions when jobs are more plentiful; however, workers may also anticipate future income from employment and consume more of their savings while unemployed. If leisure and consumption are complements, workers may end up searching less during expansion and devote more time toward leisure. This paper develops a search model that allows for these countervailing effects and structurally estimates the parameters. I find that search intensity is only weakly pro- to almost a-cyclical.