Abstract
This is an empirical study of job search using Taiwanese data and based on a structural-form estimation approach. A standard discrete-time finite horizon search model is applied to describe the behaviour of college graduates on first entering the labor market, and is estimated within the maximum likelihood routine. The estimated average earnings are near the observed average earnings and the estimated reservation wages show a decreasing pattern as search duration increases. The simulation results indicate that variations in both the mean wage offer and cost of search would have little influence on the expected duration of unemployment. However, increasing the probability of a job offer to bachelor-degree graduates would significantly diminish their duration of unemployment.