|
Orley Ashenfelter, David Ashmore, Olivier Deschenes
NBER Working Paper No. 6982*
Issued in February 1999
NBER Program(s): LS
PE
---- Abstract -----
In the last two decades, U.S. policies have moved from the use of incentives to the use of sanctions to promote work effort in social programs. Surprisingly, except for anecdotes, there is very little systematic evidence of the extent to which sanctions applied to the abusive use of social entitlements result in greater work effort. In this paper we report the results of randomized trials designed to measure whether stricter enforcement and verification of work search behavior alone decreases unemployment (UI) claims and benefits. These experiments were designed to explicitly test claims based on non-experimental data failure of claimants to actively seek work. Our results provide no support for the view that the failure to actively seek work has been a cause of overpayment in the UI system.
*Published: Ashenfelter, Orley, David Ashmore and Olivier Deschenes. "Do Unemployment Insurance Recipients Actively Seek Work? Evidence From Randomized Trials In Four U.S. States," Journal of Econometrics, 2005, v125(1-2,Mar-Apr), 53-75.
Would you like an annual subscription to NBER Working Papers? Click
here for more information.
You may purchase this paper on-line in .pdf format
from SSRN.com ($5) for electronic delivery.
Information for subscribers and others expecting no-cost downloads
Machine-readable bibliographic record -
MARC,
RIS,
BibTeX
| 
