Job Search and Unemployment Insurance: New Evidence from Time Use Data

Alan Krueger and Andreas Mueller

No 1070, Working Papers from Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section.

Abstract: This paper provides new evidence on job search intensity of the unemployed in the U.S., modeling job search intensity as time allocated to job search activities. The main findings are: 1) the average unemployed worker in the U.S. devotes about 41 minutes to job search on weekdays, which is substantially more than his or her European counterpart; 2) workers who expect to be recalled by their previous employer search substantially less than the average unemployed worker; 3) across the 50 states and D.C., job search is inversely related to the generosity of unemployment benefits, with an elasticity between -1.6 and -2.2; 4) the predicted wage is a strong predictor of time devoted to job search, with an elasticity in excess of 2.5; 5) job search intensity for those eligible for Unemployment Insurance (UI) increases prior to benefit exhaustion; 6) time devoted to job search is fairly constant regardless of unemployment duration for those who are ineligible for UI. A nonparametric Monte Carlo technique suggests that the relationship between job search effort and the duration of unemployment for a cross-section of job seekers is only slightly biased by length-based sampling.

Keywords: unemployment; unemployment insurance; job search; time use; unemployment benefits; inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J64 J65 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-08
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (31)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Job search and unemployment insurance: New evidence from time use data (2010)
Working Paper: Job Search and Unemployment Insurance: New Evidence from Time Use Data (2008)
Working Paper: Job Search and Unemployment Insurance: New Evidence from Time Use Data (2008)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pri:indrel:532

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