AN NBER PUBLICATION
ISSUE: No. 10, October 2013
The Digest
A free monthly publication featuring non-technical summaries of research on topics of broad public interest
Extended UI benefits in the aftermath of the Great Recession raised the average duration of unemployment by 7 percent and caused the unemployment rate to increase by 0.4 percentage points.
Extensions of the number of weeks for which unemployed workers were able to receive unemployment insurance (UI) benefits in the previous two recessions caused these beneficiaries to stay unemployed a little longer than usual, according to new research by Henry Farber and Robert...
Article
There is a powerful work disincentive from public health insurance eligibility.
Craig Garthwaite, Tal Gross, and Matthew Notowidigdo study the labor supply effects of one of the largest public health insurance disenrollments in U.S. history. This disenrollment occurred in 2005 in Tennessee. The state, facing mounting deficits, discontinued its expansion of TennCare, the state's Medicaid system. Approximately 170,000 residents abruptly lost public health insurance...
Article
Small unconditional grants provided an extra year of education for about 89 dollars in cash transfers and 10 dollars in administrative costs.
Finding ways to improve school attendance among low-income students in developing countries is a perennial challenge. In Turning a Shove Into a Nudge? A "Labeled Cash Transfer" for Education (NBER Working Paper No. 19227), Najy Benhassine, Florencia Devoto, Esther Duflo, Pascaline Dupas, and Victor Pouliquen study the results...
Article
Young, small businesses were more sensitive to the business cycle than older, large businesses.
There is considerable debate about how firms of different sizes respond to the business cycle. Some evidence shows that small firms are more sensitive to cycles, while other evidence finds that larger firms are more sensitive. In How Firms Respond to Business Cycles: The Role of Firm Age and Firm Size (NBER Working Paper No. 19134), authors Teresa Fort, John Haltiwanger,...
Article
Most immigrants arriving after the 1980s had a smaller rate of economic assimilation than those who arrived earlier.
In The Slowdown in the Economic Assimilation of Immigrants: Aging and Cohort Effects Revisited Again (NBER Working Paper No. 19116), George Borjas finds a cohort effect not only in the level of immigrant earnings, with more recent immigrants having generally lower entry wages than immigrants did before the 1980s, but also in their rate of earnings...
Article
For juveniles on the margin of incarceration, detention leads to both a decrease in high school completion and an increase in adult incarceration.
In 2010, there were 70,792 incarcerated juveniles in the United States, a rate of 2.3 per 1,000 aged 10-19. Including those under correctional supervision, the United States has a juvenile corrections rate that is five times higher than the next highest country. In a life-cycle context, incarceration during adolescence may...