The unemployment insurance (UI) system was established to alleviate the distress and hardship caused by involuntary unemployment. Through weekly benefit payments to eligible claimants, the system helps maintain living standards during active job search. The adequacy of the weekly benefit amount...

We provide new evidence on the effect of the unemployment insurance (UI) weekly benefit amount on unemployment insurance spells based on administrative data from the state of Missouri covering the period 2003-2013. Identification comes from a regression kink design that exploits the...