Job Search, Spatial Constraints, and Unemployment Duration: An Empirical Analysis of the Cameroonian Case

Abstract

The individual transition from unemployment to employment is conditioned by various elements. If some of them concern directly the individual characteristics of workers, while others implicate indeed their environment when searching for a job. The residential location, housing status, and high travel distances to each labor market area are factors that can influence the exit rate of unemployment. This paper aims to integrate, in a job search model with endogenous intensity, the spatial horizon of prospecting. This horizon is introduced through the prospecting distance, which influences both the arrival rate of offers and the search costs. The equilibrium properties of the model lead to an indeterminate effect of the prospecting distance on the unemployment duration. The micro econometric estimation of the structural model allows us to deal with this ambiguity. The method adopted takes into account not only the selection rule on access to employment but also the endogeneity of the choice of spatial mobility. Results highlight that the exit from unemployment is shorter as the prospecting distance increases, but the increase in this prospecting distance does not lead to a decrease in the reserve wage.