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Title: Three Essays on Unemployment and Unemployment Insurance
Resulting in 1 citation.
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Levine, Phillip B. |
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Three Essays on Unemployment and Unemployment Insurance Ph.D. Dissertation, Princeton University, 1990 Cohort(s): NLSY79 Publisher: UMI - University Microfilms, Bell and Howell Information and Learning Keyword(s): Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Treatment Response: Monotone, Semimonotone, or Concave-monotone; Unemployment; Unemployment Duration; Unemployment Insurance This dissertation contains three separate essays. The first essay assesses the ability of a simple search- theoretic model to explain the results of two controlled social experiments. The availability of two independent experiments with substantially different treatments allows for a rigorous test of the model. Parameters of the model are estimated by minimizing the distance between the observed and predicted aggregate response in each experiment, then cross-validated using the observed and predicted treatment response from the other experiment. The model is unable to predict an effect as large as that observed in one of the experiments. In addition, the model cannot explain the degree of individual-specific wage variability found in the data. The relative success of models with and without search intensity is also considered, but the statistical procedures cannot distinguish between them. The second essay documents and attempts to explain the observed disparities between unemployment rates computed from contemporaneous and retrospective data from the Current Population Survey (CPS). The maintained hypothesis is that the discrepancies are consistent with different definitions of unemployment between the two measures. The longitudinal nature of the CPS is exploited to show that more workers with weak labor force attachment are considered unemployed in the contemporaneous rate relative to the retrospective measure. An example is provided indicating that conclusions of earlier studies are unwarranted when retrospective rates are used rather than contemporaneous. Given the different definitions, researchers may find that in certain circumstances the retrospective rate is a more appropriate measure of unemployment. In the third essay, I consider the effect of changing the level of Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits on workers who do not receive UI. The author presents a model indicating that if UI benefits increase, the offer arrival rate for the uninsured increases and, under the appropriate conditions, uninsured workers find jobs sooner. These predictions are tested using data from several March Current Population Surveys and the NLSY. In both samples, I find that an increase in UI benefits leads to a reduction in the duration of unemployment for uninsured workers. [UMI ADG91-10383] |
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Bibliography Citation
Levine, Phillip B. Three Essays on Unemployment and Unemployment Insurance. Ph.D. Dissertation, Princeton University, 1990. |