This paper analyzes the design of optimal unemployment insurance in a search equilibrium framework where search effort among the unemployed is not perfectly observable.We examine to what extent the optimal policy involves monitoring of search effort and benefit sanctions if observed search is...

This discussion paper has resulted in chapter 2 in: 'Losing Work, Moving On: International Perspectives On Worker Displacement', Peter J. Kuhn, Ed., 2002, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, Kalamazoo, MI, ISBN 0-88099-234-4.

In the past decades several features of U.S. unemployment dynamics have been investigated empirically. The original focus of research was on the duration of unemployment. In later studies the cyclicality of incidence and duration, compositional effects and duration dependence of the exit rate...