This paper explores how the introduction of an experience rated system of unemployment insurance affects employment and welfare in a model where implicit contracts between firms and workers give rise to wage rigidities and unemployment. In the literature, it has been argued that experience rated...

While many employees risk losing their job and having their career disrupted due to employers' financial distress, it is widely recognized that many leave their employer in anticipation of layoff. In this paper, we assess how employee costs of financial distress depend on employees learning and...

Do firms in China share rents with their workers? We address this question by examining firm-level panel data covering virtually all manufacturing firms over the period 2000-2007, representing an average of 200,000 firms and 54 million workers per year. We find robust evidence of rent sharing...

We design and field an innovative survey of unemployment insurance (UI) recipients that yields new insights about wage stickiness on the layoff margin. Most UI recipients express a willingness to accept wage cuts of 5-10 percent to save their jobs, and one third would accept a 25 percent cut....

We use linked longitudinal data on employers and employees to estimate how the 2003-2005 Hartz reforms affected the wages of displaced German workers after they returned to work. We also present a simple new method to decompose the wage effects into components attributable to selection on...

For every payment, there is an equal and opposite tax. In the study of unemployment insurance, economists have developed a substantial literature considering the impact of payments on labor supply. In contrast, they have usually left unexamined the influence on labor demand of the unique tax...

In the United States, workers whose past earnings were below a threshold are generally ineligible for unemployment insurance (UI), creating a discontinuous jump in the value of being unemployed. Using a regression discontinuity design with administrative panel data, we estimate a sizable local...

Business creation is economically important, and unemployment precedes the creation of a substantial share of new firms. Yet, most research has focused on analyzing the effects of unemployment insurance policies on re-employment outcomes, ignoring self-employment. In this paper, we analyze how...

Despite the importance of business creation for the economy and a relevant share of new firms being started out of unemployment, most research has focused on analyzing the effect of unemployment insurance (UI) policies on reemployment outcomes that ignore self-employment. In this paper, we...

Despite the importance of business creation for the economy and a relevant share of new firms being started out of unemployment, most research has focused on analyzing the effect of unemployment insurance (UI) policies on reemployment outcomes that ignore self-employment. In this paper, we...