TY  - JOUR
AU  - Marinescu, Ioana
TI  - The General Equilibrium Impacts of Unemployment Insurance: Evidence from a Large Online Job Board
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 22447
PY  - 2016
Y2  - July 2016
DO  - 10.3386/w22447
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w22447
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w22447.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Ioana Marinescu
University of Pennsylvania
School of Social Policy & Practice
3701 Locust Walk
Philadelphia PA, 19104-6214
E-Mail: ioma@upenn.edu
M1  - published as Ioana Marinescu. "The General Equilibrium Impacts of Unemployment Insurance: Evidence from a Large Online Job Board," in Roger Gordon, Andreas Peichl and James Poterba, organizers, "Social Insurance Programs (Trans-Atlantic Public Economics Seminar, TAPES)" Journal of Public Economics, Volume 171 (Elsevier) (2019)

M3  - presented at "Trans-Atlantic Public Economics Seminar", June 13-15, 2016
AB  - 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.
ER  -