Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP5741
Authors: Jan C. van Ours; Milan Vodopivec
Abstract: This paper investigates how the potential duration of unemployment benefits affects the quality of post-unemployment jobs. It takes advantage of a natural experiment introduced by a change in Slovenia?s unemployment insurance law that substantially reduced the potential benefit duration. Although this reduction strongly increased job finding rates, the quality of the post-unemployment jobs remained unaffected: the paper finds that the law change had no effect on either the type of the contract (temporary vs. permanent), the duration of the post-unemployment jobs, or the wage earned in this job.
Keywords: job separation rates; postunemployment wages; potential benefit duration; unemployment insurance
JEL Codes: C41; H55; J64; J65
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Reduction in potential benefit duration (PBD) (H43) | Job finding rates (J68) |
| Reduction in potential benefit duration (PBD) (H43) | Job quality indicators (temporary vs. permanent job contracts) (J63) |
| Reduction in potential benefit duration (PBD) (H43) | Job duration (C41) |
| Reduction in potential benefit duration (PBD) (H43) | Wages (J31) |
| Reduction in potential benefit duration (PBD) (H43) | Wages (females) (J31) |