This paper analyzes optimal unemployment insurance over the business cycle in a search model in which unemployment stems from matching frictions (in booms) and job rationing (in recessions). Job rationing during recessions introduces two novel effects ignored in previous studies of optimal...

I investigate in this paper partial equilibrium labor supply responses to unemployment insurance (UI) in the US. I use administrative data on the universe of unemployment spells in five states from 1976 to 1984, and non-parametrically identify the effect of both benefit level and potential...

This paper analyzes optimal unemployment insurance (UI) over the business cycle. We consider a general matching model of the labor market. For a given UI, the economy is efficient if tightness satisfies a generalized Hosios condition, slack if tightness is too low, and tight if tightness is too...

This paper presents evidence on taxable income responses using administrative data that link tax return information to detailed socioeconomic information for the full Danish population over 25 years. The identifying variation is provided by a series of tax reforms that create large tax variation...