This paper studies the role of job search assistance programs in optimal welfare-to-work programs. The analysis is based on a framework, that allows for endogenous choice of benefit types and levels, wage taxes or subsidies, and activation measures such as monitoring and job search assistance...

With the emergence of the Great Recession unemployment insurance (UI) is once again at the heart of the policy debate. In this paper, we review the recent theoretical and empirical evidence on the labor market effects of UI design. We also discuss policy issues related to UI design, including...

We examine the impacts of time-limited unemployment insurance (UI) and active labor market programs (ALMP) on the duration and outcome of job search in Norway. We use a comprehensive simultaneous equations model accounting for i) the duration of unemployment spells; ii) their outcomes, iii)...

Unemployment increased drastically over the course of the Great Recession from 4.5 percent prior to the recession to 10 percent at its peak in October 2009. Since then, the unemployment rate has come down steadily, and it stood at 5.8 percent in November 2014. Based on existing analyses and some...

This paper examines whether or not a prolonged unemployment period can raise the quality of job matching after unemployment. We focus on job tenure as an indicator of a good quality job match after unemployment. We match two sets of Japanese administrative data compiled by the public employment...

We model how unemployment benefit sanctions - benefit reductions that are imposed if unemployed do not comply with job search guidelines - affect unemployment. In our analysis we find that not only micro effects concerning the behavior of individual unemployed workers are relevant, but also...

This paper provides a review of the recent literature on how incentives in unemployment insurance (UI) can be improved. We are particularly concerned with three instruments, viz. the duration of benefit payments (or more generally the time sequencing of benefits), monitoring in conjunction with...

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 paper simultaneously investigates the effectiveness of benefit sanctions and active labour market programmes on the exit rate from un mployment using Danish data. In the data about one third of the individuals who are sanctioned also participate in some active labour market programmes...