Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

What Are the Long-Term Effects of UI? Evidence from the UK JSA Reform

Contents:

Author Info

  • Barbara Petrongolo

Abstract

This paper investigates long-term returns from unemployment compensation, exploiting variation from the UK JSA reform of 1996, which implied a major increase in job search requirements for eligibility and in the related administrative hurdle. Search theory predicts that such changes should raise the proportion of non-claimant nonemployed, with consequences on search effort and labor market attachment, and lower the reservation wage of the unemployed, with negative effects on post-unemployment wages. I test these ideas on longitudinal data from Social Security records (LLMDB). Using a difference in differences approach, I find that individuals who start an unemployment spell soon after JSA introduction, as opposed to six months earlier, are 2.5-3% more likely to move from unemployment into Incapacity Benefits spells, and 4% less likely to have positive earnings in the following year. This latter employment effect only vanishes four years after the initial unemployment shock. At the same time, earnings for the treated individuals seem to be lower than for the non treated, but the confidence intervals around these estimated effects are quite large to exclude a wider variety of scenarios. These results suggest that while tighter search requirements were successful in moving individuals off unemployment benefits, they were not successful in moving them onto new or better jobs, with fairly long lasting unintended consequences on a number of labor market outcomes.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/dp0841.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Centre for Economic Performance, LSE in its series CEP Discussion Papers with number dp0841.

as in new window
Length:
Date of creation: Dec 2007
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp0841

Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/publications/series.asp?prog=CEP

Related research

Keywords: unemployment compensation; job search; post-unemployment earnings;

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. Daron Acemoglu & Robert Shimer, 1999. "Productivity Gains from Unemployment Insurance," NBER Working Papers 7352, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  2. Lalive, Rafael & van Ours, Jan C. & Zweimüller, Josef, 2004. "How Changes in Financial Incentives Affect the Duration of Unemployment," IZA Discussion Papers 1363, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  3. Jurajda, Štepán, 2001. "Estimating the Effect of Unemployment Insurance Compensation on the Labor Market Histories of Displaced Workers," IZA Discussion Papers 294, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  4. Paul L. Burgess & Jerry L. Kingston, 1976. "The impact of unemployment insurance benefits on reemployment success," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 30(1), pages 25-31, October.
  5. Terry R. Johnson & Daniel H. Klepinger, 1994. "Experimental Evidence on Unemployment Insurance Work-Search Policies," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 29(3), pages 665-717.
  6. Orley Ashenfelter & David Ashmore & Olivier Deschenes, 1998. "Do Unemployment Insurance Recipients Actively Seek Work? Randomized Trials in Four U.S. States," Working Papers 791, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
  7. Addison, John T. & Blackburn, McKinley L., 2000. "The effects of unemployment insurance on postunemployment earnings," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 21-53, January.
  8. Acemoglu, Daron, 2001. "Good Jobs versus Bad Jobs," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 19(1), pages 1-21, January.
  9. Alan Manning, 2005. "You Can't Always Get What You Want: the Impact of the Jobseeker's Allowance," CEP Discussion Papers dp0697, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
  10. Arlene Holen, 1977. "Effects of unemployment insurance entitlement on duration and job search outcome," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 30(4), pages 445-450, July.
  11. Marimon, Ramon & Zilibotti, Fabrizio, 1999. "Unemployment vs. Mismatch of Talents: Reconsidering Unemployment Benefits," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(455), pages 266-91, April.
  12. Bruce D. Meyer, 1995. "Lessons from the U.S. Unemployment Insurance Experiments," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(1), pages 91-131, March.
  13. van Ours, Jan C. & Vodopivec, Milan, 2006. "Shortening the Potential Duration of Unemployment Benefits Does Not Affect the Quality of Post-Unemployment Jobs: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," IZA Discussion Papers 2171, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  14. Stephen Nickell & Glenda Quintini, 2002. "The Recent Performance of the UK Labour Market," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 18(2), pages 202-220, June.
  15. Peter Dolton & Donal O'Neill, 2002. "The Long-Run Effects of Unemployment Monitoring and Work-Search Programs: Experimental Evidence from the United Kingdom," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(2), pages 381-403, Part.
  16. Daron Acemoglu & Robert Shimer, 1998. "Efficient Unemployment Insurance," NBER Working Papers 6686, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  17. Kathleen P. Classen, 1977. "The effect of unemployment insurance on the duration of unemployment and subsequent earnings," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 30(4), pages 438-444, July.
  18. Card, David & Sullivan, Daniel G, 1988. "Measuring the Effect of Subsidized Training Programs on Movements in and out of Employment," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(3), pages 497-530, May.
  19. 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 754-66, December.
  20. repec:bla:restud:v:73:y:2006:i:4:p:1009-1038 is not listed on IDEAS
  21. P. Diamond, 1980. "Mobility Costs, Frictional Unemployment and Efficiency," Working papers 257, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
  22. Christian Belzil, 2001. "Unemployment insurance and subsequent job duration: job matching versus unobserved heterogeneity," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(5), pages 619-636.
  23. David Card & Raj Chetty & Andrea Weber, 2006. "Cash-on-Hand and Competing Models of Intertemporal Behavior: New Evidence from the Labor Market," NBER Working Papers 12639, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  24. Mário Centeno, 2004. "The Match Quality Gains from Unemployment Insurance," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(3).
  25. Dolton, Peter & O'Neill, Donal, 1996. "Unemployment Duration and the Restart Effect: Some Experimental Evidence," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 106(435), pages 387-400, March.
  26. Atkinson, Anthony B & Micklewright, John, 1991. "Unemployment Compensation and Labor Market Transitions: A Critical Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 29(4), pages 1679-1727, December.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp0841

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ().

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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