Thesis (Ed. D.)--Northern Illinois University, 1980. / Dept. of Leadership and Educational Policy Studies.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1967. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

During recent years unemployment insurance has come to be recognized as an automatic stabilizer in the economy. This implies that unemployment insurance programmes operate so as to automatically dampen both economic expansions and contractions. In Canada, however, little empirical research aimed at determining the magnitude of this dampening effect has been undertaken. In an attempt to fill this void, this study makes an empirical assessment of the effectiveness of Canada's unemployment insurance programme as an automatic stabilizer. To do this the period 1950-1965 was broken down into its component periods of economic expansion and contraction. This period was chosen to reflect modern postwar economic conditions. The component periods consisted of three downswings and four upswings. Three techniques were then employed to determine the countercyclical role of the programme during each of the seven periods. Firstly, the change in national income during each period was compared to the changes in unemployment insurance benefits and contributions during the same periods. From this was obtained a measure of the portion of any change in national income offset by compensatory changes in benefits and/or contributions. Secondly, using the same periods, a simple multiplier model was employed to determine what portion of any potential change in national income was prevented by the unemployment insurance programme. For both of these techniques both historical data and data adjusted to remove the effect of changes in the programme were used. And thirdly, a correlation analysis was employed to determine whether benefits and contributions were directly or inversely associated with the level of economic activity. The results of this study indicate that Canada's unemployment insurance programme has performed creditably as an automatic stabilizer during periods of economic contraction. The benefit component of the scheme has been almost totally responsible for this effectiveness. Moreover, the efficacy of the programme during downswings has doubled in recent years - increasing from a compensatory effect of about 14% of the change in national income during the contraction of 1953-1954 to one of about 27% of the change in national income during the contraction of 196O-I961. The programme has been relatively less effective as an automatic stabilizer during periods of economic expansion. However, during the last two upswings a significant compensatory effect was experienced. The magnitude of this effect lay between 10% and 17% of the change in national income during the expansion of 1958-1960 and between 5% and 8% of the change in national Income during the upswing of 1961-1965. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

In this study, I examine the influence of unemployment insurance benefits on labour force participation, employment, and unemployment. Conclusions are developed concerning the consequences of the 1971 revision of the Canadian unemployment insurance programme, which differ from those of earlier writings in this field. My model estimates the proportions of the population in each labour force state (employment, unemployment, and "not in the labour force"). Each labour force state proportion is modelled as a function of the gross flows between the labour force states. This model resembles a Markov model and is similar to the model developed by Toikka (197 6). The decisions by employers and employees that generate the gross flows between labour force states are modelled as behavioural functions of economic variables. Unlike other studies, this study imposes strict consistency between equations due to the conservation of the population in the gross flows. Other studies have tended to be single equation models and the specification of the equations between studies and in one case, within a study, is not consistent. The model is estimated for ten age-sex populations. It is estimated using monthly' data for the period 1961 to 1975. The estimation method is Full Information Maximum Likelihood. Because the system of three equations is singular, one equation is redundant and may be dropped during estimation. Estimation is independent of which equation is dropped. This study brings evidence to support the position that different groups respond in different ways to changes in unemployment insurance. According to the model, prime age men are unresponsive to short-term fluctuations in incentives. Young and old men appear to reduce their labour supply when unemployment insurance benefits are increased. This is the net effect of changes in the gross flows between labour force states. The model suggests that the net labour force participation of women increases in response to increases in unemployment Insurance benefits. Men and women differ in their response to unemployment insurance in two additional ways. First estimated responses for women are generally greater than those for men. While women respond seasonally and non-seasonally to unemployment insurance, the response by men tends to be restricted to seasonal behaviour. These findings are consistent with earlier findings in that they suggest a general increase in unemployment and labour force participation due to increases In unemployment insurance. Although my findings suggest some unemployment insurance—induced quit behaviour, they do not suggest a decline in the aggregate level of employment. The dominant result in this study is that unemployment insurance Induces labour force participation, which places upward pressure on employment and unemployment. / Arts, Faculty of / Vancouver School of Economics / Graduate

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I denna uppsats undersöks samspelet mellan ersättningsnivå i arbetslöshetsförsäkringen och investeringar i aktiv arbetsmarknadspolitik och hur detta är kopplat till arbetsvilja i ett urval om 21 länder. Metoden som används är en beskrivning av arbetsmarknadspolitik i olika länder samt analys baserad på flernivåregression. Data är hämtad från ISSP och OECD. Uppsatsens slutsats är att en hög arbetsvilja har en tydlig koppling till ett lands kombination av arbetsmarknadspolitik och att denna koppling antar olika former med samspelet mellan ersättningsnivå i arbetslöshetsförsäkringen och ett lands investeringar i aktiv arbetsmarknadspolitik. Detta är relevant för diskussionen om hur välfärdsstaten kan överleva på längre sikt genom motverkande av de negativa incitament som skapas av vissa av dess beståndsdelar.

This dissertation contains three chapters in macroeconomics that study the financing and provision of unemployment insurance. The first chapter studies cross-sectional differences in U.S. state provision of unemployment insurance and the distortionary effects of federal unemployment benefit subsidies in a dynamic labor search model. The paper has two main findings. First, differences in the job-separation rate and the job-finding rate within the model can generate the negative correlation between the average benefit provided by a state and the state's unemployment rate, as observed in the data. Secondly, the model shows how the federal subsidization of unemployment benefit extensions in high-unemployment states causes an over-provision of the benefit, which in turn increases the unemployment rate in those states. Because the extensions are federally subsidized, however, the welfare loss due to the distortion is offset by the benefits of redistribution between states. The second chapter studies the optimal government monitoring of job search effort by unemployment insurance recipients. The theoretical model is a labor search economy with imperfectly observable search effort. The government observes a signal that is correlated with job search effort and must decide the threshold level of the signal that determines continued UI eligibility. The results of the numerical analysis show that the government increases this threshold level at each duration of the unemployment spell. Further, an increasing threshold profile can generate a sharp increase and subsequent drop-off in search effort near the expiration of benefits as observed in the data. The third chapter studies the optimal mix of distortionary capital and labor taxes in an altruistic economy. This problem is addressed by solving a dynamic general equilibrium model with production, in which finitely-lived individuals are linked inter-generationally through altruistic preferences. The government is tasked with financing an exogenous stream of government spending by levying distortionary capital and labor income taxes in a way that minimizes welfare loss in the economy. The numerical results show that nearly all government revenue should be raised through the labor income tax. / text