The General Equilibrium Impacts of Unemployment Insurance: Evidence from a Large Online Job Board / Ioana Marinescu.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Marinescu, Ioana.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w22447.

NBER working paper series no. w22447

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

General Equilibrium Impacts of Unemployment Insurance

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2016.

Summary:

During the Great Recession, U.S. unemployment benefits were extended by up to 73 weeks. Theory predicts that extensions increase unemployment by discouraging job search, a partial equilibrium effect. Using data from the large job board CareerBuilder.com, I find that a 10% increase in benefit duration decreased state-level job applications by 1%, but had no robust effect on job vacancies. Job seekers thus faced reduced competition for jobs, a general equilibrium effect. Calibration implies that the general equilibrium effect reduces the impact of unemployment insurance on unemployment by 40%: increasing benefit duration by 10% increases unemployment by only 0.6% in equilibrium.

Notes:

Print version record

July 2016.