Unemployment insurance, unemployment durations and re-employment wages

Great expectations: Past wages and unemployment durations☆

Decomposing wages into worker and firm wage components, we find that firm-fixed components are sizeable parts of workers' wages. If workers can only imperfectly observe the extent of firm-fixed components in their wages, they might be misled about the overall wage distribution. Such misperceptions may lead to unjustified high reservation wages, resulting in overly long unemployment durations. W...

The effect of unemployment benefits on re-employment rates: Evidence from the Finnish unemployment insurance reform

a r t i c l e i n f o In January 2003, the unemployment benefits in Finland were increased for workers with long employment histories. The average benefit increase was 15% for the first 150 days of the unemployment spell. At the same time severance pay system was abolished. In this paper we evaluate the effect of the change in the benefit structure on the duration of unemployment by comparing t...

Spell durations with long unemployment insurance periods

This paper uses data from a natural experiment to investigate the potential incentive effect of a fixed unemployment insurance period. We compare two large groups of Norwegian unemployed persons who registered as unemployed in 1990 and 1991. The last group was affected by a rule change that in practice extended the length of unemployment benefits to more than 3 years. Our data are taken from of...

UNEMPLOYED AND SCARRED FOR LIFE? Longitudinal Analyses of How Unemployment and Policy Changes Affect Re-employment Careers and Wages in the Netherlands, 1980-2000 How are individuals’ employment careers and wages influenced by unemployment and by changing unemployment insurance

The Effect of Unemployment Benefits and Nonemployment Durations on Wages∗

We estimate that Unemployment Insurance (UI) extensions reduce reemployment wages using sharp age discontinuities in UI eligibility in Germany. We show this effect combines two key policy parameters: the effect of UI on reservation wages and the effect of nonemployment durations on wage offers. Our framework implies if UI extensions do not affect wages conditional on duration, then reservation ...