The labor market in the Great Recession and its aftermath is characterized by great difficulty in escaping unemployment. I present two empirical analyses of a particular explanation for that difficulty, that the housing market crisis has prevented the unemployed from selling their homes and moving to take new jobs. First, I examine post-job-loss mobility rates by home ownership status using data from the Displaced Workers Survey. Second, I examine mobility rates for unemployed homeowners and renters from the month-to-month CPS match. Neither analysis provides any support for the idea that the housing market crisis has reduced mobility of the unemployed.

I develop a model of daily labor supply where preferences are dependent on a reference daily income level, and I apply this model to data on the labor supply of New York City taxi drivers. I find that there may be a reference level of income on a given day that affects labor supply. However, there is substantial day-to-day variation in a given driver's reference level, and most shifts end before reaching the reference income level. This pattern is inconsistent with an important role for reference-dependent preferences.

this paper contains the development of the model to be tested, while Section II provides an interpretation of the model and spells out the testing framework. Section III contains a description of the sample, while Section IV contains the empirical results and an example of their use in analyzing a particular bargaining situation. Section V provides a summary of the results, a discussion of some of their limitations, and suggestions for further research

We summarize findings from an audit study investigating how unemployment duration, age, and holding a low-level “interim” job affect the likelihood that experienced college-educated females applying for administrative support jobs receive a callback from potential employers. The results show no relationship between callback rates and unemployment duration. In contrast, workers age 50 and older and workers with an “interim” job are significantly less likely to receive callbacks. We also summarize disparate findings in the growing literature of resume-based audit studies of career histories, and discuss avenues in which the literature could achieve results that are more comparable and externally valid.

Unemployment Insurance benefit durations were extended during the Great Recession, reaching 99 weeks for most recipients. The extensions were rolled back and eventually terminated by the end of 2013. Using matched CPS data from 2008-2014, we estimate the effect of extended benefits on unemployment exits separately during the earlier period of benefit expansion and the later period of rollback. In both periods, we find little or no effect on job-finding but a reduction in labor force exits due to benefit availability. We estimate that the rollbacks reduced the labor force participation rate by about 0.1 percentage point in early 2014.