Advances in Economics, Management and Political Sciences

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Proceedings of the 2023 International Conference on Management Research and Economic Development

Series Vol. 25 , 13 September 2023


Open Access | Article

Labour Market Analysis from a Behavioral Economics Perspective: From the Perspective of Unemployment Insurance and Employment Discrimination

Jiawen Yang * 1
1 University College London

* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Advances in Economics, Management and Political Sciences, Vol. 25, 20-24
Published 13 September 2023. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by EWA Publishing
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Citation Jiawen Yang. Labour Market Analysis from a Behavioral Economics Perspective: From the Perspective of Unemployment Insurance and Employment Discrimination. AEMPS (2023) Vol. 25: 20-24. DOI: 10.54254/2754-1169/25/20230469.

Abstract

This article analyzes labor market problems through the lens of behavioral economics. This article seeks to identitys methods in which behavioral economics can provide policy recommendations for addressing issues related to unemployment and employment. While traditional economics fails to explain how unemployment insurance discourages job search and leads to long-term unemployment, behavioral economics finds that cognitive biases like loss aversion and present bias prolong unemployment. It suggests that policies must be designed by considering these cognitive biases to increase the motivation of the unemployed to accept work. One policy that can supplement unemployment insurance is wage-loss insurance. Wage-loss insurance is a short or long-term monetary subsidy when the wages in the new job are lower than in the old job. This paper uses qualitative analysis and a literature review to gather insights into labor market problems and the role of behavioral economics in addressing them.

Keywords

behaviroul economics, labour markets, unemployment insurances, cognitive bias, discrimination

References

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2. Meyer, B. D. (1995). Lessons from the U.S. Unemployment Insurance Experiments. Journal of Economic Literature, 33(1), 91–131. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2728911

3. Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

4. Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. ( 1973). Availability: A heuristic for judging frequency and probability. Cognitive Psychology, 5(2), 207–232. https://doi.org/ 10. 1016/0010-0285(73)90033-9

5. Babcock, L., Congdon, W. J., Katz, L. F., & Mullainathan, S. (2012). Notes on behavioral economics and labor market policy. IZA Journal of Labor Policy, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/2193-9004-1-2

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7. Laibson, D. (1997). Golden eggs and hyperbolic discounting. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 112(2), 443-478.

8. Spinnewijn, J. (2015). Unemployed but optimistic: Optimal insurance design with biased beliefs. Journal of the European Economic Association, 13(1), 130-167.

9. Bertrand, M., & Mullainathan, S. (2004). Are Emily and Greg more employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A field experiment on labor market discrimination. American economic review, 94(4), 991-1013.

10. Carlsson, M., & Eriksson, S. (2019). Age discrimination in hiring decisions: Evidence from a field experiment in the labor market. Labour Economics, 59, 173-183.

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13. Wallace, P. A. (1973). EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION: SOME POLICY CONSIDERATIONS. In O. Ashenfelter & A. Rees (Eds.), Discrimination in Labor Markets (pp. 155–175). Princeton University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt13x10hs.13

Data Availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.

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Volume Title
Proceedings of the 2023 International Conference on Management Research and Economic Development
ISBN (Print)
978-1-915371-93-5
ISBN (Online)
978-1-915371-94-2
Published Date
13 September 2023
Series
Advances in Economics, Management and Political Sciences
ISSN (Print)
2754-1169
ISSN (Online)
2754-1177
DOI
10.54254/2754-1169/25/20230469
Copyright
13 September 2023
Open Access
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Copyright © 2023 EWA Publishing. Unless Otherwise Stated