This paper argues that unemployment insurance increases labor productivity by encouraging workers to seek higher productivity jobs, and by encouraging firms to create those jobs. We use a quantitative general equilibrium model to investigate whether this effect is comparable in magnitude to the...

This paper constructs a tractable general equilibrium model of search with risk-aversion. An increase in risk-aversion reduces wages, unemployment, and investment. Unemployment insurance (UI) has the reverse effect due to market generated moral hazard: insured workers seek high wage jobs with...

This paper constructs a tractable general equilibrium model of search with risk aversion. An increase in risk aversion reduces wages, unemployment, and investment. Unemployment insurance has the opposite effect: insured workers seek high-wage jobs with high unemployment risk. An economy with...