Unemployment in Interwar Britain: Dole or Doldrums?

Barry Eichengreen

Oxford Economic Papers, 1987, vol. 39, issue 4, 597-623

Abstract: Several controversial recent studies seek to explain interwar Britain's high unemployment rate in terms of the generosity of her unemployment-insurance system. All of these studies are macroeconomic in nature. In contrast, this paper employs a micro economic sample of some 2,400 adult males to analyze the relationship of unemployment benefits to unemployment in 1929-31. The author find s a generally positive but small association between unemployment inc idence and the estimated benefit/wage ratio, but one limited largely to secondary workers. The contribution of insurance benefits to inter war unemployment turns out to be small in the context of the Great De pression. Copyright 1987 by Royal Economic Society.

Date: 1987
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