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Worker mobility and reservation wages for minority youth job seekers

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Abstract

Job offers requiring varying commuting times to work from inner-city areas and the reservation wages for a sample of young Chicano job seekers are examined. A logistic probability model of job acceptance using the minimum wage as an acceptance-rejection cutoff in relation to the reservation wage data is estimated by maximum likelihood techniques and suggests that the level of schooling is an important determinant of the probability of job acceptance. The results of this analysis suggest a restriction on the geographic range of job acceptances to the extent that minimum wage job offers located away from inner city, minority neighborhoods would most likely be rejected by the sample of minority youth job seekers.

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The author thanks Frank Lad and John Vrooman for helpful comments, Kevin Higgins and Ahmad Vedadi for computer programming assistance and the referee for helpful comments. The research reported here was supported in part by the Community Services Administration and the Office of Youth Programs and a Summer Research Grant from the University of Utah Center for Policy Analysis; the findings and conclusions represent the views of the author.

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Seninger, S.F. Worker mobility and reservation wages for minority youth job seekers. Ann Reg Sci 18, 62–68 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01287376

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01287376

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