Unemployment insurance benefits and income smoothing

• Main Authors: NG, Tee Yong Jeffrey, RANASINGHE, Tharindra, SHI, Guifeng, YANG, Holly I.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2019
• Subjects: Income smoothing; Unemployment insurance; Accounting
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soa_research/1817; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soa_research/article/2844/viewcontent/1_s2.0_S0278425419300365___PV.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Labor unemployment insurance reduces unemployment concerns. We argue that these benefits moderate incentives to smooth earnings to reduce employees’ concerns about unemployment risk. Using exogenous variations in unemployment insurance benefits, we find evidence consistent with this argument. We als...