Measures of unemployment tally people without a job who are looking for one. For measurement purposes, the critical question is what constitutes looking. This article summarizes how unemployment is measured in the United States and Europe, and describes recent research investigating the...

Economists often expect unemployment insurance (UI) benefits to elevate unemployment rates because recipients may choose to remain unemployed in order to continue receiving benefits, instead of accepting a job or dropping out of the labor force. This paper uses individual data from the Current...