Unemployment Benefits and Mobility

Post date: Sep 26, 2011 12:05:42 AM

It looks as if the gap between mobility rates of those who receive unemployment compensation and those who do not receive unemployment compensation is fairly stable. However, the fraction of total unemployed persons who claim benefits has gone through the roof. The unemployment benefit ``lock-in effect'' seems to be persistent, and may be due to other household characteristics (education, past earnings, etc.). I am going to look at the literature on this... these images were made using the CPS.

Key Question: What is the effect of unemployment benefit variation across states and the incentive to move? How would this affect aggregate unemployment? (Anyone want to look at this with me?)