A key question in labor market research is how the unemployment insurance system affects unemployment rates and labor … 76% of declining unemployment after the reform, a fact unexplained by existing research focusing on job finding rates … causally link our empirical findings to the reduction in long-term unemployment benefits using a heterogeneous-agent labor …

We study asset-tested unemployment insurance in an incomplete markets model with moral hazard during job search. Asset … incentive to save and fewer private resources are used for consumption smoothing during unemployment. Our results show that in a … time-discount factors. We conclude that the current U.S. unemployment insurance system is approximately optimal. …