Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/172241 
Year of Publication: 
2017
Series/Report no.: 
Upjohn Institute Working Paper No. 17-279
Publisher: 
W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, Kalamazoo, MI
Abstract: 
Research in the 1970s based on observational data provided evidence consistent with predictions from economic theory that paying unemployment insurance (UI) benefits to involuntarily jobless workers prolongs unemployment. However, some scholars also reported estimates that the additional time spent in subsidized job search was productive. That is, UI receipt tended to raise reemployment wages after work search among the unemployed. A series of field experiments in the 1980s investigated positive incentives to overcome the work disincentive effects of UI. These were followed by experiments in the 1990s that evaluated the effects of restrictions on UI eligibility through stronger work search requirements and alternative uses of UI. The new century has seen some related field experiments in employment policy, and reexamination of the earlier experimental results. This paper reviews the experimental evidence and considers it in the context of the current federal-state UI system.
Subjects: 
field experiments
public employment policy
unemployment insurance
UI
employment service
ES
job search assistance
JSA
targeting employment services
profiling
WPRS
self-employment
short-time compensation
work sharing
JEL: 
J65
J68
J48
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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