Does Extending Unemployment Benefits Improve Job Quality?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Nekoei, Arash; Weber, Andrea
• 署名单位: Stockholm University; Vienna University of Economics & Business
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20150528
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 527-561
• 关键词: regression-discontinuity approach; labor-market; social insurance; match quality; duration; search; externalities; equilibrium; INFORMATION; ECONOMICS

摘要

Contrary to standard search models predictions, past studies have not found a positive effect of unemployment insurance (UI) on reemployment wages. We estimate a positive UI wage effect exploiting an age-based regression discontinuity design in Austria. A search model incorporating duration dependence predicts two countervailing forces: UI induces workers to seek higher-wage jobs, but reduces wages by lengthening unemployment. Matching-function heterogeneity plausibly generates a negative relationship between the UI unemployment-duration and wage effects, which holds empirically in our sample and across studies, reconciling disparate wage-effect estimates. Empirically, UI raises wages by improving reemployment firm quality and attenuating wage drops.