We document the sources behind the costs of job loss over the business cycle using administrative data from Germany. Losses in annual earnings after displacement are large, persistent, and highly cyclical, nearly doubling in size during downturns. A large part of the long-term earnings losses...

This paper shows empirically that the non-employment effects of unemployment insurance (UI) for older workers depend in a first-order way on the structure of retirement policies. Using German data, we first present reduced-form evidence of these interactions, documenting large bunching in UI...

Wage insurance provides income support to displaced workers who find reemployment at a lower wage. We analyze wage insurance in the context of the U.S. Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program by merging linked employer-employee Census data to TAA petitions and leveraging a discontinuity in...

We systematically review studies of how unemployment benefits affect unemployment duration. Statistically significant findings are eleven times more likely to be published. Correcting for publication bias halves the average elasticity. Meta-analysis provides a principled way for sufficient...

We study the labor market effects of permanent 23-50% reductions in unemployment insurance benefits available in seven states. Leveraging linked firm-establishment data, we find that establishments based in reform states experience 1.5-2.4% faster employment growth relative to the same firm's...

We exploit an unanticipated labor market reform in 2012 Spain to estimate the effects of pro-cyclical changes in long-term unemployment assistance (UA). The reform raised the minimum age to receive unlimited-duration UA from 52 to 55. Using a difference-in-differences design, we document that...

This paper analyzes optimal and equilibrium insurance contracts under adverse selection and moral hazard, comparing them with those under a single informational asymmetry. The complex interactions of self-selection and moral hazard constraints have important consequences. We develop an analytic...

We introduce dynamic incentive contracts into a model of unemployment dynamics and present three results. First, wage cyclicality from incentives does not dampen unemployment dynamics: the response of unemployment to shocks is first-order equivalent in an economy with flexible incentive pay and...

This paper uses an asymmetric information framework to understand the causes of the recent financial crisis in Korea. It shows that the Korean data is consistent with this explanation of the crisis. It then draws on this analysis to discuss several lessons that can help guide Korean policymakers...

This article describes the anatomy of health insurance. It begins by considering the optimal design of health insurance policies. Such policies must make tradeoffs appropriately between risk sharing on the one hand and agency problems such as moral hazard (the incentive of people to seek more...