In this paper we ask a question whether a prolonging of entitlement to unemployment benefits that happened in the mid 80s can explain the unusual increase in unemployment rates of unskilled and old workers. To answer this question we estimate a version of Burdett-Mortensen model of search...

The distribution of unemployment duration in our equilibrium matching model with spell-dependent unemployment benefits displays a time-varying exit rate. Building on Semi-Markov processes, we translate these exit rates into an expression for the aggregate unemployment rate. Structural estimation...

We develop and estimate a non-stationary job search model to evaluate a scheme that monitors job search effort and sanctions insured unemployed whose effort is deemed insufficient. The model reveals that such schemes provide incentives to the unemployed to front-load search effort prior to...