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

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Author Info
Orley Ashenfelter
David Ashmore
Olivier Deschenes

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Abstract

In the last two decades, U.S. policies have moved from the use of incentives to the use of sanctions to promote work effort in social programs. Surprisingly, except for anecdotes, there is very little systematic evidence of the extent to which sanctions applied to the abusive use of social entitlements result in greater work effort. In this paper we report the results of randomized trials designed to measure whether stricter enforcement and verification of work search behavior alone decreases unemployment (UI) claims and benefits. These experiments were designed to explicitly test claims based on non-experimental data failure of claimants to actively seek work. Our results provide no support for the view that the failure to actively seek work has been a cause of overpayment in the UI system.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 6982.

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Date of creation: Feb 1999
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:6982

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
J65 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies - - - Unemployment Insurance; Severance Pay; Plant Closings

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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.:
  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. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  2. 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. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Jerry L. Kingston & Paul L. Burgess & Robert D. St. Louis, 1986. "Unemployment insurance overpayments: Evidence and implications," Industrial and Labor Relations Review, ILR Review, ILR School, Cornell University, vol. 39(3), pages 323-336, April.
  4. James J. Heckman, 1991. "Randomization and Social Policy Evaluation," NBER Technical Working Papers 0107, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Heckman, James J & Smith, Jeffrey, 1997. "Making the Most Out of Programme Evaluations and Social Experiments: Accounting for Heterogeneity in Programme Impacts," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 64(4), pages 487-535, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Ham, John C & LaLonde, Robert J, 1996. "The Effect of Sample Selection and Initial Conditions in Duration Models: Evidence from Experimental Data on Training," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(1), pages 175-205, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  1. Denis Fougère & Jacqueline Pradel & Muriel Roger, 2005. "Does Job-Search Assistance Affect Search Effort and Outcomes? A Microeconometric Analysis of Public versus Private Search Methods," IZA Discussion Papers 1825, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Paserman, M. Daniele, 2004. "Job Search and Hyperbolic Discounting: Structural Estimation and Policy Evaluation," IZA Discussion Papers 997, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Fredriksson, Peter & Holmlund, Bertil, 2003. "Improving Incentives in Unemployment Insurance: A Review of Recent Research," Working Paper Series 2003:10, Uppsala University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Stefano DellaVigna & M. Daniele Paserman, 2004. "Job Search and Impatience," NBER Working Papers 10837, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  5. Dan A. Black & Jeffrey A. Smith & Mark C. Berger & Brett J. Noel, 2002. "Is the Threat of Reemployment Services More Effective than the Services Themselves? Experimental Evidence from the UI System," NBER Working Papers 8825, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Barbara Petrongolo, 2007. "What Are the Long-Term Effects of UI? Evidence from the UK JSA Reform," CEP Discussion Papers dp0841, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE. [Downloadable!]
  7. Lawrence Katz & Alan Krueger, 1999. "The High-pressure U.S. Labor Market of the 1990s," Working Papers 795, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section.. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  8. David Card & Richard B. Freeman, 2002. "What Have Two Decades of British Economic Reform Delivered?," NBER Working Papers 8801, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  9. Petrongolo, Barbara, 2008. "The long-term effects of job search requirements: Evidence from the UK JSA reform," CEPR Discussion Papers 7067, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Hesselius, Patrik & Johansson, Per & Larsson, Laura, 2005. "Monitoring sickness insurance claimants: evidence from a social experiment," Working Paper Series 2005:15, IFAU - Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation. [Downloadable!]
  11. Tito Boeri, 2005. "An Activating Social Security System," De Economist, Springer, vol. 153(4), pages 375-397, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Johansson, Per, 2006. "Using internal replication to establish a treatment effect," Working Paper Series 2006:3, IFAU - Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation. [Downloadable!]
  13. Breunig, Robert & Cobb-Clark, Deborah A. & Dunlop, Yvonne & Terrill, Marion, 2002. "Assisting the Long-Term Unemployed: Results from a Randomized Trial," IZA Discussion Papers 628, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  14. Jeffrey Smith, 2000. "Is the Threat of Training More Effective than Training Itself? Experimental Evidence from the UI System," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 1660, Econometric Society. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  15. Van der Linden, Bruno & Dor, Eric, 1998. "The net effect of unemployment benefits, sanctions and training on aggregate unemployment outflows," Discussion Papers (IRES - Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales) 2000020, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES), revised 07 Sep 2000. [Downloadable!]
  16. Jeff Borland & Yi-Ping Tseng, 2003. "How Do Administrative Arrangements Affect Exit from Unemployment Payments? The Case of the Job Seeker Diary in Australia," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2003n27, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne. [Downloadable!]
  17. Hans H. Glismann & Klaus Schrader, 2001. "Alternative Systeme der Arbeitslosenversicherung — Das Beispiel der Vereinigten Staaten und des Vereinigten Königreichs," Kiel Working Papers 1032, Kiel Institute for the World Economy. [Downloadable!]
  18. Petrongolo, Barbara, 2008. "The Long-Term Effects of Job Search Requirements: Evidence from the UK JSA Reform," IZA Discussion Papers 3856, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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