Empirical results show that unemployment benefits (UB) recipients significantly change to worse job conditions with respect to wages and firm size, but change to better job conditions with respect to occupation, position, industry, and residence. While the effects for occupation are not...

This paper considers the design of an optimal unemployment insurance system. The problem is modeled as a repeated principal-agent problem involving a risk-averse agent--the unemployed worker--and a risk-neutral principal, which cannot monitor the agent's search effort. The optimal long-term...

Unemployment insurance programs balance the benefits of consumption smoothing for unemployed workers against the disincentive effects of unemployment benefits. Such a balancing of benefits and costs is likely sensitive to the cyclical state of the economy, and hence the generosity of benefits...

Denmark has drawn much attention for its active labor market policies, but is almost unique in offering a voluntary public unemployment insurance program requiring a significant premium payment. A safety net program — a less generous, means-tested social assistance plan — completes the...

Unemployment Insurance benefit durations were extended during the Great Recession, reaching 99 weeks for most recipients. The extensions were rolled back and eventually terminated by the end of 2013. Using matched CPS data from 2008-2014, we estimate the effect of extended benefits on...

Denmark has drawn much attention for its active labor market policies, but is almost unique in offering a voluntary public unemployment insurance program requiring a significant premium payment. A safety net program – a less generous, means-tested social assistance plan – completes the...

In this paper, I investigate the effect of extended unemployment insurance (UI) coverage in the United States in recent years on job search. The U.S. government extended UI benefits in several phases in 2008-2009, increasing the duration of the benefits to a maximum of 99 weeks, up from the...

In dynamic wage bargaining models it is usually assumed that individual unemployment benefits are a fraction of the average wage level. In most countries, however, unemployment benefits are instead tied to the previous level of individually earned wages. We show how the analysis has to be...

We identify the causal effect of lump-sum severance payments on non-employment duration in Norway by exploiting a discontinuity in eligibility at age 50. We find that a severance payment worth 1.2 months' earnings at the median lowers the fraction re-employed after a year by six percentage...

This paper studies optimal unemployment benefit levels and optimal proportional income tax rates over the business cycle. Previous research suggests that policy makers should make unemployment insurance (UI) dependent on the business cycle because the UI system can be used to smooth consumption...