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Do Unemployment Insurance Recipients Actively Seek Work? Evidence From Randomized Trials in Four U.S. States

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Author Info

  • Ashenfelter, Orley

    () (Princeton University)

  • Ashmore, David

    () (Princeton University)

  • Deschenes, Olivier

    () (University of California, Santa Barbara)

Abstract

In this paper we report the results of the only field test of which we are aware that uses randomized trials to measure whether stricter enforcement and verification of work search behavior alone decreases unemployment claims and benefits paid in the U.S. unemployment insurance (UI) program. These experiments, which we implemented in four sites in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Virginia, and Tennessee, were designed to explicitly test claims based on nonexperimental data, summarized in Burgess and Kingston (1987), that a prime cause of overpayments is the failure of claimants to actively seek work. Our results provide no support for the view that the failure to actively search for work has been a cause of overpayments in the UI system.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 128.

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Length: 32 pages
Date of creation: Mar 2000
Date of revision:
Publication status: published in: Journal of Econometrics, 2005, 125 (1-2), 53-75
Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp128

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Keywords: work-search requirement; overpayment; Social experiment;

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  1. Jerry A. Hausman & David A. Wise, 1985. "Technical Problems in Social Experimentation: Cost versus Ease of Analysis," NBER Working Papers 1061, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  2. Walter Corson & David Long & Walter Nicholson, 1985. "Evaluation of the Charleston Claimant Placement and Work Test Demonstration," Mathematica Policy Research Reports 7757, Mathematica Policy Research.
  3. Heckman, James J. & Lalonde, Robert J. & Smith, Jeffrey A., 1999. "The economics and econometrics of active labor market programs," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 31, pages 1865-2097 Elsevier.
  4. James J. Heckman & Jeffrey A. Smith, 1995. "Assessing the Case for Social Experiments," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 85-110, Spring.
  5. Douglas Wolf & David Greenberg, 1986. "The Dynamics of Welfare Fraud: An Econometric Duration Model in Discrete Time," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 21(4), pages 437-455.
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