Social comparisons are important in the employment sphere. A "culture of unemployment" may evolve and prevail because … group. We advance the idea that by making the receipt of unemployment benefits conditional on engagement in an incentive …

Unemployment insurance provides temporary cash benefits to eligible unemployed workers. Benefits are sometimes extended … offers throughout their spell of unemployment. The welfare consequences of misperceiving the probability and length of an …

A large fraction of the eligible unemployed workers does not claim for unemployment insurance (UI) and, among claimants … the sample faces high claiming frictions, many have good employment prospects and exit unemployment quickly. The burden of … little effect on aggregate unemployment duration. Additionally we show that the link between claiming and job search efforts …