[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/12865.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Quasi-Experimental Evidence on the Effects of Unemployment Insurance from New York State

Author

Listed:
  • Bruce D. Meyer
  • Wallace K. C. Mok
Abstract
This paper examines unemployment duration and the incidence of claims following a 36 percent increase in the maximum weekly benefit in New York State. This benefit increase sharply increased benefits for a large group of claimants, while leaving them unchanged for a large share of claimants who provide a natural comparison group. The New York benefit increase has the special features that it was unexpected and applied to in-progress spells. These features allow the effects on duration to be convincingly separated from effects on incidence. The results show a sharp fall in the hazard of leaving UI that coincides with the increase in benefits. The evidence is also consistent with a substantial effect of the benefit level on the incidence of claims and with this change in incidence biasing duration estimates. The evidence further suggests that, at least in this case, standard methods that identify duration effects through nonlinearities in the benefit schedule are not badly biased.

Suggested Citation

  • Bruce D. Meyer & Wallace K. C. Mok, 2007. "Quasi-Experimental Evidence on the Effects of Unemployment Insurance from New York State," NBER Working Papers 12865, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12865
    Note: LS PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w12865.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joseph G. Altonji & Todd E. Elder & Christopher R. Taber, 2005. "Selection on Observed and Unobserved Variables: Assessing the Effectiveness of Catholic Schools," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 151-184, February.
    2. Topel, Robert H, 1983. "On Layoffs and Unemployment Insurance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(4), pages 541-559, September.
    3. Dale T. Mortensen, 1977. "Unemployment Insurance and Job Search Decisions," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 30(4), pages 505-517, July.
    4. Layard, Richard & Nickell, Stephen & Jackman, Richard, 2005. "Unemployment: Macroeconomic Performance and the Labour Market," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199279173.
    5. Rebecca M. Blank & David E. Card, 1991. "Recent Trends in Insured and Uninsured Unemployment: Is There an Explanation?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(4), pages 1157-1189.
    6. Anderson, Patricia M. & Meyer, Bruce D., 2000. "The effects of the unemployment insurance payroll tax on wages, employment, claims and denials," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(1-2), pages 81-106, October.
    7. Topel, Robert H, 1984. "Experience Rating of Unemployment Insurance and the Incidence of Unemployment," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(1), pages 61-90, April.
    8. Solon, Gary R, 1985. "Work Incentive Effects of Taxing Unemployment Benefits," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(2), pages 295-306, March.
    9. Lars Ljungqvist & Thomas J. Sargent, 1998. "The European Unemployment Dilemma," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(3), pages 514-550, June.
    10. Raj Chetty, 2005. "Why do Unemployment Benefits Raise Unemployment Durations? Moral Hazard vs. Liquidity," NBER Working Papers 11760, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Krueger, Alan B. & Meyer, Bruce D., 2002. "Labor supply effects of social insurance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 33, pages 2327-2392, Elsevier.
    12. Danziger, Sheldon & Haveman, Robert & Plotnick, Robert, 1981. "How Income Transfer Programs Affect Work, Savings, and the Income Distribution: A Critical Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 19(3), pages 975-1028, September.
    13. Moffitt, Robert, 1985. "Unemployment insurance and the distribution of unemployment spells," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 85-101, April.
    14. Knut Roed & Tao Zhang, 2003. "Does Unemployment Compensation Affect Unemployment Duration?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(484), pages 190-206, January.
    15. repec:fth:prinin:144 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Bertil Holmlund, 1998. "Unemployment Insurance in Theory and Practice," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 100(1), pages 113-141, March.
    17. Alan L. Gustman, 1980. "Analyzing the Relation of Unemployment Insurance to Unemployment," NBER Working Papers 0512, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Gary Solon, 1981. "Unemployment Insurance, Filing Delay, and Unemployment Duration," Working Papers 524, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    19. Arulampalam, Wiji & Stewart, Mark B, 1995. "The Determinants of Individual Unemployment Durations in an Era of High Unemployment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(429), pages 321-332, March.
    20. Martin Neil Baily, 1977. "Unemployment Insurance as Insurance for Workers," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 30(4), pages 495-504, July.
    21. Meyer, Bruce D, 1990. "Unemployment Insurance and Unemployment Spells," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 58(4), pages 757-782, July.
    22. repec:bla:scandj:v:100:y:1998:i:1:p:113-41 is not listed on IDEAS
    23. Roed, Knut & Zhang, Tao, 2005. "Unemployment duration and economic incentives--a quasi random-assignment approach," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(7), pages 1799-1825, October.
    24. Card, David & Levine, Phillip B., 2000. "Extended benefits and the duration of UI spells: evidence from the New Jersey extended benefit program," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(1-2), pages 107-138, October.
    25. Ehrenberg, Ronald G & Oaxaca, Ronald L, 1976. "Unemployment Insurance, Duration of Unemployment, and Subsequent Wage Gain," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 66(5), pages 754-766, December.
    26. Jonathan Gruber, 1994. "The Consumption Smoothing Benefits of Unemployment Insurance," NBER Working Papers 4750, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    27. repec:pri:indrel:dsp017m01bk69x is not listed on IDEAS
    28. Gruber, Jonathan, 1997. "The Consumption Smoothing Benefits of Unemployment Insurance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(1), pages 192-205, March.
    29. Bruce D. Meyer, 1989. "A Quasi-Experimental Approach to the Effects of Unemployment Insurance," NBER Working Papers 3159, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    30. Patricia M. Anderson & Bruce D. Meyer, 1997. "Unemployment Insurance Takeup Rates and the After-Tax Value of Benefits," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(3), pages 913-937.
    31. McCall, Brian P, 1995. "The Impact of Unemployment Insurance Benefit Levels on Recipiency," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 13(2), pages 189-198, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Claudio Michelacci & Hernán Ruffo, 2015. "Optimal Life Cycle Unemployment Insurance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(2), pages 816-859, February.
    2. Sebastian Koehne & Moritz Kuhn, 2015. "Should unemployment insurance be asset-tested?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 18(3), pages 575-592, July.
    3. Liepmann, Hannah & Pignatti, Clemente, 2024. "Welfare effects of unemployment benefits when informality is high," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 229(C).
    4. Parag A. Pathak & Alvin E. Roth, 2013. "Matching with Couples: Stability and Incentives in Large Markets," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(4), pages 1585-1632.
    5. Agrawal, Ashwini K. & Matsa, David A., 2013. "Labor unemployment risk and corporate financing decisions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(2), pages 449-470.
    6. Rebollo-Sanz, Yolanda Fatima & Rodríguez-Planas, Núria, 2016. "When the Going Gets Tough... Financial Incentives, Duration of Unemployment and Job-Match Quality," IZA Discussion Papers 10044, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Miquel Faig & Min Zhang, 2012. "Labor Market Cycles, Unemployment Insurance Eligibility, and Moral Hazard," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 15(1), pages 41-56, January.
    8. Devos, Erik & Rahman, Shofiqur, 2018. "Labor unemployment insurance and firm cash holdings," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 15-31.
    9. Blasco, Sylvie & Fontaine, Francois, 2021. "Unemployment Duration and the Take-up of Unemployment Insurance," IZA Discussion Papers 14038, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Uusitalo, Roope & Verho, Jouko, 2007. "The effect of unemployment benefits on re-employment rates: evidence from the Finnish UI-benefit reform," Working Paper Series 2007:21, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    11. Krebs, Tom & Scheffel, Martin, 2016. "Quantifizierung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Effekte ausgewählter Reformvorschläge der Studie "Reforms, Investment and Growth: An Agenda for France, Germany and Europe"," Working Papers 16-04, University of Mannheim, Department of Economics.
    12. Cristobal Huneeus & Silvia Leiva & Alejandro Micco, 2012. "Unemployment Insurance and Search Effort in Chile," Research Department Publications 4784, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    13. Tom Krebs & Martin Scheffel, 2013. "Macroeconomic Evaluation of Labor Market Reform in Germany," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 61(4), pages 664-701, December.
    14. David Bardey & Samir Kiuhan & Julio César Suárez, 2009. "Seguros de desempleo: revisión de literatura y propuesta para Colombia," Documentos de Trabajo 5739, Universidad del Rosario.
    15. Beatrix Eugster, 2015. "Effects of a Higher Replacement Rate on Unemployment Durations, Employment, and Earnings," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 151(I), pages 3-25, March.
    16. David Card & Andrew Johnston & Pauline Leung & Alexandre Mas & Zhuan Pei, 2015. "The Effect of Unemployment Benefits on the Duration of Unemployment Insurance Receipt: New Evidence from a Regression Kink Design in Missouri, 2003-2013," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(5), pages 126-130, May.
    17. Bruce D. Meyer & Wallace K. C. Mok, 2014. "A Short Review of Recent Evidence on the Disincentive Effects of Unemployment Insurance and New Evidence From New York State," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 67(1), pages 219-252, March.
    18. Mr. Tom Krebs & Mr. Martin Scheffel, 2013. "Macroeconomic Evaluation of Labor Market Reform in Germany," IMF Working Papers 2013/042, International Monetary Fund.
    19. Devos, Erik & Rahman, Shofiqur, 2023. "Does labor unemployment insurance affect corporate tax aggressiveness?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    20. Bernardus Van Doornik & David Schoenherr & Janis Skrastins, 2018. "Unemployment Insurance, Strategic Unemployment and Firm-Worker Collusion," Working Papers Series 483, Central Bank of Brazil, Research Department.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Krueger, Alan B. & Meyer, Bruce D., 2002. "Labor supply effects of social insurance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 33, pages 2327-2392, Elsevier.
    2. Bruce D. Meyer & Wallace K. C. Mok, 2014. "A Short Review of Recent Evidence on the Disincentive Effects of Unemployment Insurance and New Evidence From New York State," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 67(1), pages 219-252, March.
    3. Konstantinos Tatsiramos & Jan C. Ours, 2014. "Labor Market Effects Of Unemployment Insurance Design," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 284-311, April.
    4. Peter Fredriksson & Bertil Holmlund, 2006. "Improving Incentives in Unemployment Insurance: A Review of Recent Research," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(3), pages 357-386, July.
    5. Tali Regev, 2006. "Unemployment insurance and the uninsured," Working Paper Series 2006-48, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    6. Chetty, Raj, 2006. "A general formula for the optimal level of social insurance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(10-11), pages 1879-1901, November.
    7. Roed, Knut & Zhang, Tao, 2005. "Unemployment duration and economic incentives--a quasi random-assignment approach," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(7), pages 1799-1825, October.
    8. Regev, Tali, 2012. "Unemployment compensation under partial program coverage," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(6), pages 888-897.
    9. Michael W. L. Elsby & Bart Hobijn & Aysegul Sahin, 2010. "The Labor Market in the Great Recession," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 41(1 (Spring), pages 1-69.
    10. Camille Landais, 2015. "Assessing the Welfare Effects of Unemployment Benefits Using the Regression Kink Design," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 7(4), pages 243-278, November.
    11. Card, David & Levine, Phillip B., 2000. "Extended benefits and the duration of UI spells: evidence from the New Jersey extended benefit program," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(1-2), pages 107-138, October.
    12. Bruce D. Meyer, 1989. "A Quasi-Experimental Approach to the Effects of Unemployment Insurance," NBER Working Papers 3159, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Holmlund, Bertil, 1997. "Unemployment Insurance in Theory and Practice," Working Paper Series 1997:25, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    14. Roed, Knut & Nordberg, Morten, 2003. "Temporary layoffs and the duration of unemployment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 381-398, June.
    15. Knut Roed & Tao Zhang, 2003. "Does Unemployment Compensation Affect Unemployment Duration?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(484), pages 190-206, January.
    16. Chul-In Lee, 2000. "The Impact of Taxing Unemployment Insurance Benefits on Unemployment Duration and Post-unemployment Earnings," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 7(4), pages 521-546, August.
    17. Raj Chetty, 2008. "Moral Hazard vs. Liquidity and Optimal Unemployment Insurance," NBER Working Papers 13967, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Walter Nicholson & Karen Needels, "undated". "The EUC08 Program in Theoretical and Historical Perspective," Mathematica Policy Research Reports 9046cb11c3aa44c8a036a6e38, Mathematica Policy Research.
    19. Raj Chetty, 2005. "Why do Unemployment Benefits Raise Unemployment Durations? Moral Hazard vs. Liquidity," NBER Working Papers 11760, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Guler, Bulent & Taskin, Temel, 2013. "Does unemployment insurance crowd out home production?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 1-16.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
    • J65 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment Insurance; Severance Pay; Plant Closings

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12865. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.