Essays in Labor Economics.

My dissertation research extends the analysis of the effects of two major safety net programs, the unemployment benefits program and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), beyond the traditional outcomes studied in the literature. In the case of the unemployment benefits program, I analyze its effects on the behavior of employed workers rather than on unemployed individuals. I find evidence in Chapter I that, for older workers in the US, an increase in the potential replacement rate provided by unemployment benefits results in a decrease in the probability of searching on the job, which leads to a decrease in the probability of experiencing a job-to-job transition and an increase in the probability of transitioning into a jobless spell. The sizes of the estimated effects are larger for workers in downsizing firms. This finding is supported by the theoretical framework developed in my dissertation, which indicates that unemployment benefits would have stronger effects on the decisions of workers who are at higher risk of job loss. Chapter II extends the analysis to the case of workers at imminent risk of layoff, using administrative data from establishment closures in West Germany. In this chapter, I study whether the potential duration of unemployment benefits, rather than their levels, has an effect on workers’ job search behavior when they arguably are aware of their impending job loss. I exploit changes in the rules for the duration of unemployment benefits to test the prediction (from the theoretical model developed in the chapter) that workers with longer benefits would be less likely to take a new job before their establishments close down. I find that the empirical evidence strongly supports this prediction. In the case of SNAP, I study in Chapter III its impact on measures of material hardship beyond the standard focus on food security. I find that SNAP reduces not only food insecurity but also the risk of households falling behind on their non-food essential expenses including housing, utilities, and medical costs. These findings are important because SNAP has become the largest means-tested income transfer program in the US.PhDEconomicsUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/99926/1/italo_1.pd