The Long-Term Effects of Unemployment Insurance

Evidence from New Brunswick and Maine, 1940-1991

Bibliographic Data

ID4905928
AuthorsPeter Kühn (0000-0002-9638-2394, University of California, Santa Barbara), Chris Riddell
Year2010
Volume63
Issue2
Pages183-204
Publication date2010-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueIndustrial and Labor Relations Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0019-7939 • E-ISSN: 2162-271X
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/001979391006300201
OpenAlexW1503347400
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited10

Using data spanning half a century for adjacent jurisdictions in the United States and Canada, the authors study the long-term effects of a generous unemployment insurance (UI) program on the distribution of weeks worked. They find substantial effects. For example, in 1990, about 12.6% of working-age men in Maine's northernmost counties worked between 1 and 39 weeks; just across the border in New Brunswick, the figure was 25.6%. According to the estimates, New Brunswick's much more generous UI system accounts for more than three-fourths of this differential. In part because part-year workers are drawn from both ends of the distribution of annual weeks worked (0 weeks and 40-52 weeks), the generosity of New Brunswick's program had only modest estimated effects on total labor supply, even as it substantially increased UI program participation and expenditures

Demographic economics · Distribution (mathematics) · Economic growth · Economics · Generosity · Labour economics · Political science · Sociology · Unemployment · Demography · Employment and Welfare Studies · Labor market dynamics and wage inequality · Retirement, Disability, and Employment

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