DP5741 Shortening the Potential Duration of Unemployment Benefits Does Not Affect the Quality of Post-Unemployment Jobs: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Author(s):	Jan C. van Ours, Milan Vodopivec
Publication Date:	July 2006
Keyword(s):	job separation rates, post-unemployment wages, potential benefit duration, unemployment insurance
JEL(s):	C41, H55, J64, J65
Programme Areas:	Labour Economics
Link to this Page:	cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=5741

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.