This page offers the latest information about workshop series by WINPEC (Waseda Institute of Political Economy).

Empirical Microeconomics

Dmitri Koustas (University of Chicago)

Jun. 23 2022
Title Unemployment Insurance Incentives of Self-Employed and Marginally-Attached Workers
Date June 23, 2022 (Thursday) 16:30-18:00
Location Hybrid: Room 601 in Building 3 for in-person meeting
Abstract Self-employed and marginally attached workers are typically excluded from Unemployment Insurance (UI) systems. What happens when UI benefits are extended to these workers? We study the temporary extension of UI benefits to these workers as part of the 2020 COVID policy response in the United States. We examine three groups to whom UI was extended: gig platform workers, self-employed more broadly, and the cohort of 2020 graduating high school seniors. After documenting variation in policy implementation across U.S. states, we exploit this variation in a spatial regression discontinuity design. We find reductions in labor supply that vary dramatically across different groups that we interpret as an income effect plus moral hazard responses. We hypothesize these differences across groups are due to differences in the effective job-finding rate per unit of search. Our results and estimates of the behavioral responses to UI can potentially inform proposals to modernize the UI system.
Paper
Slide
Note For online paticipation, please register via the following link
https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJApce-sqjMiGdw28IIrWrZ02GVUo0QCkeAz