Unemployment insurance in the Great Recession: moral hazard and consumption smoothing

Many empirical studies of the effect of unemployment insurance on unemployment duration and jobmatch quality use data from before 2000. These data exclude the recessions that occurred after the millenniumchange, in 2001-2002 and the Great Recession in 2007-2009. Given the persistent mass unemploymentthat characterized this decade, it is inappropriate to project these earlier results onto the current labormarket. This thesis analyzes recent panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation, ranging from2001-2012, to measure the disincentive effects of unemployment insurance on job search. I find evidenceof consumption smoothing by individuals in the poorest quintiles of the sample, while those in the richestquintiles exhibit waiting behavior.