This paper studies the effect of unemployment duration on asking (reservation) wages. We provide new evidence based on unique longitudinal data on unemployed workers in Belgium, who were surveyed about self-reported reservation wages at the start of the unemployment spell, and after 3 and 6 months of unemployment duration. Our estimates suggest that reservation wages decline with unemployment duration by about 0.4 percent per month, or 5 percent per year, and that cross-sectional estimates are biased upward. We find stronger declines among men and among workers who earned high wages in their previous jobs. The paper discusses these findings in the light of learning models and discusses the implications of falling reservation wages for the debate on the effect of unemployment on wages.

本文研究了失业持续时间对要求（保留）工资的影响。我们根据比利时失业工人的独特纵向数据提供了新的证据，他们在失业期开始时以及失业持续 3 个月和 6 个月后接受了关于自我报告的保留工资的调查。我们的估计表明，保留工资随失业持续时间每月下降约 0.4%，或每年下降 5%，并且横截面估计有向上偏差。我们发现男性和在以前的工作中赚取高薪的工人的下降幅度更大。本文根据学习模型讨论了这些发现，并讨论了保留工资下降对失业对工资影响的辩论的影响。