Supply and Demand Effects of Unemployment Insurance Benefit Extensions: Evidence from U.S. Counties

I use three decades of county-level data to estimate the effects of federal unemployment benefit extensions on economic activity. To overcome the reverse causality coming from the fact that benefit extensions are a function of state unemployment rates, I only use the within-state variation in outcom...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Hellwig, Klaus-Peter
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Washington, D.C. International Monetary Fund 2021
Series:IMF Working Papers
Subjects:
Online Access:
Collection: International Monetary Fund - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
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300 |a 35 pages 
651 4 |a United States 
653 |a Unemployment Insurance 
653 |a Economic & financial crises & disasters 
653 |a Economics 
653 |a Labour 
653 |a Financial crises 
653 |a Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies: Public Policy 
653 |a Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search 
653 |a Economics: General 
653 |a Fiscal Policy 
653 |a Unemployment 
653 |a Labor markets 
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653 |a Severance Pay 
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653 |a Labor Economics: General 
653 |a Plant Closings 
653 |a International Economics 
653 |a Labor market 
653 |a Macroeconomics 
653 |a Wages 
653 |a Unemployment rate 
653 |a Economic theory 
653 |a Intergenerational Income Distribution 
653 |a Income economics 
653 |a Employment 
653 |a Labor economics 
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520 |a I use three decades of county-level data to estimate the effects of federal unemployment benefit extensions on economic activity. To overcome the reverse causality coming from the fact that benefit extensions are a function of state unemployment rates, I only use the within-state variation in outcomes to identify treatment effects. Identification rests on a differences-in-differences approach which exploits heterogeneity in county exposure to policy changes. To distinguish demand and supply-side channels, I estimate the model separately for tradable and non-tradable sectors. Finally I use benefit extensions as an instrument to estimate local fiscal multipliers of unemployment benefit transfers. I find (i) that the overall impact of benefit extensions on activity is positive, pointing to strong demand effects; (ii) that, even in tradable sectors, there are no negative supply-side effects from work disincentives; and (iii) a fiscal multiplier estimate of 1.92, similar to estimates in the literature for other types of spending