Productivity Gains from Unemployment Insurance / Daron Acemoglu, Robert Shimer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Acemoglu, Daron.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Shimer, Robert.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w7352.

NBER working paper series no. w7352

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1999.

Summary:

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 standard moral hazard effects of unemployment insurance. Our model economy captures the behavior of the U.S. labor market for high school graduates quite well. When unemployment insurance becomes more generous starting from the current U.S. levels, there is an increase in unemployment similar in magnitude to the micro-estimates, but because the composition of jobs also changes, total output and welfare increase as well.

Notes:

Print version record

September 1999.