Time Preferences and Job Search: Evidence from France

Abstract.  Increasing impatience reduces search efforts of unemployed job seekers and therefore decreases the exit rate from unemployment. Also, impatience reduces reservation wage and increases the exit rate. To determine the overall effect of impatience on the exit rate from unemployment, we distinguish between exponential and hyperbolic time preferences. Search effort dominates the reservation wage and decreases the exit rate from unemployment if individuals have hyperbolic, rather than exponential, preferences. Using the French sample of the European Household Panel Survey, we found that search effort has a strong effect on the duration of unemployment, whereas the reservation wage is not significant. This result shows that the job seekers have hyperbolic preferences. Hyperbolic preferences affect problems associated with job search and policies aimed at reducing unemployment.