How Does the Unemployment Insurance System Shape the Time Profile of Jobless Duration?

This paper updates a sparse literature on the effects of unemployment benefits (UB) on the time profile of escape rates from unemployment. These effects, as well as those of other regressors, are found to vary profoundly over the course of unemployment.

O ensino de português no Estado de New Jersey, E.U.A.

A falta de dados sobre o ensino de português nos Estados Unidos é sem dúvida o maior entrave a um plano eficaz e estruturado que permita aos países de língua portuguesa estabelecerem metas e objetivos para o crescimento da língua no universo americano. O estudo apresentado nesta dissertação foi feito durante mais de um ano e tem como objetivo principal mostrar a situação do ensino da língua portuguesa nos Estados Unidos da América, mais especificamente em New Jersey. Foram contatadas escolas comunitárias ou de herança, ensino integrado e instituições de ensino superior para darem a saber o que se ensina, como se ensina e quem ensina o Português no estado de New Jersey, quer seja Português Língua Não Materna, Português Língua Materna ou Português Língua Estrangeira.

Dinocyst biochronology and palynofacies : inferred systems tract character of Miocene sequences from New Jersey mid-Atlantic transect (ODP legs 174A and 174AX) /

One of the main objectives of the mid-Atlantic transect is to improve dating resolution of sequences and unconfonnity surfaces. Dinoflagellate cysts from two Ocean Drilling Program boreholes, the onshore Leg 174AX Ocean View Site and Leg 174A continental shelf Site 1071, are used to provide age estimates for sequences and unconfonnities fonned on the New Jersey continental margin during the Miocene epoch. Despite the occasional lack of dinocysts in barren and oxidized sections, dinocyst biochronology still offers greater age control than that provided by other microfossils in marginal marine environments. An early Miocene to late Miocene chronology based on ages detennined for the two study sites is presented. In addition, .palynofacies are used to unravel the systems tract character of the Miocene sequences and provide insight into the effects of taphonomy and preservation of palynomorphs in marginal marine and shelf environments under different ~ea level conditions. More precise placement of maximum flooding surfaces is possible through the identification of condensed sections and palynofacies shifts can also reveal subaerially exposed sections and surfaces not apparent in seismic or lithological analyses. The problems with the application of the pollen record in the interpretation of Miocene climate are also discussed. Palynomorphs provide evidence for a second-order lowering of sea level during the Miocene, onto which higher order sea level fluctuations are super-imposed. Correlation of sequences and unconfonnities is attempted between onshore boreholes and from the onshore Ocean View borehole to offshore Site 1071.

The Woodruffs of New Jersey

A book written by Francis Eben Woodruff about the Woodruff family in New Jersey. The inside cover is signed by H.K. Woodruff.

Discours et politique du répertoire public de délinquants sexuels : la « Loi de Megan » au New Jersey

Le 29 juillet 1994, Megan Kanka, une jeune fille de sept ans de la municipalité de Hamilton au New Jersey, est enlevée, agressée sexuellement et tuée par ce qui se révélera être son voisin d’en face, Jesse Timmendequas. À l’époque, l’assaillant de Megan avait déjà fait l’objet de deux condamnations pour agression sexuelle. Suite à cette tragédie, les parents de Megan luttèrent pour la création d’une loi qui révélerait automatiquement au public l’identité et le lieu de résidence des délinquants sexuels. Moins de trois mois plus tard, la « Loi de Megan » était ratifiée. Ainsi un répertoire étatique centralisé de délinquants sexuels en partie disponible au public fut créé. Notre étude se centre sur ce cas et tente de comprendre comment une construction particulière de la délinquance sexuelle comme problème social mena à la réponse pénale spécifique qu’était la Loi de Megan. Pour ce faire, nous analysons les discours et argumentaires politiques en lien avec l’affaire. Huit entretiens avec différents acteurs impliqués dans le débat politique menant à la création de la loi de Megan furent effectués. Une analyse de plus de 150 articles de journaux et de quelques projets et textes de lois fut également effectuée. Nos résultats soulignent d’abord le rôle primordial qu’avait le contexte sociopolitique autant sur la construction du problème social de la délinquance sexuelle que sur la solution qui lui était liée. L’analyse du cas nous indique également que la dyade problème-solution s’élabora en conjonction, dans un cadre temporel uniforme, dont les seules étapes détectables sont celles du narratif de la mort de Megan et de l’élaboration concrète de la loi. En d’autres mots, la mort de Megan ne constituait qu’un point focal qui permit à des acteurs de mettre en pratique des concepts déjà largement partagés. L’étude conclue en liant le contexte sociopolitique du Canada à celui retrouvé dans notre étude de cas et suggère qu’une construction similaire de la délinquance sexuelle comme problème peut facilement être envisageable chez nous. Si personne ne souhaite l’occurrence d’une situation comparable à celle vécue par Megan Kanka et sa famille, cet élément nous apparaît comme étant celui qui propulserait réellement cette construction sur la place publique, à condition bien évidemment qu’une personne ou un groupe de personnes en fassent une question à débattre.

Unemployment insurance in the presence of an informal sector

We study the effect of UI benefits in a typical developing country where the informal sector is sizeable and persistent. In a partial equilibrium environment, ruling out the macroeconomic consequences of UI benefits, we characterize the stationary equilibrium of an economy where policyholders may be employed in the formal sector, short-run unemployed receiving UI benefits or long-run unemployed without UI benefits. We perform comparative static exercises to understand how UI benefits affect unemployed worker´s effort to secure a formal job, their labor supply in the informal sector and leisure time. Our model reveals that an increase in UI benefits generates two opposing effects for the short-run unemployed. First, since search efforts cannot be monitored it generates moral hazard behaviours that lower effort. Second, it generates an income effect as it reduces the marginal cost of searching for a formal job and increases effort.The overall effect is ambiguous and depends on the relative strength of these two effects. Additionally, we show that an increase in UI benefits increases the efforts of long-run unemployed workers. We provide a simple simulation exercise which suggests that the income effect pointed out is not necessarily of second-order importance in comparison with moral hazard strength. This result softens the widespread opinion, usually based on the microeconomic/partial equilibrium argument that the presence of dual labor markets is an obstacle to providing UI in developing countries.

Unemployment insurance an analysis of optimal mechanisms under aggregate shocks

The purpose of this work is to provide a brief overview of the literature on the optimal design of unemployment insurance systems by analyzing some of the most influential articles published over the last three decades on the subject and extend the main results to a multiple aggregate shocks environment. The properties of optimal contracts are discussed in light of the key assumptions commonly made in theoretical publications on the area. Moreover, the implications of relaxing each of these hypothesis is reckoned as well. The analysis of models of only one unemployment spell starts from the seminal work of Shavell and Weiss (1979). In a simple and common setting, unemployment benefits policies, wage taxes and search effort assignments are covered. Further, the idea that the UI distortion of the relative price of leisure and consumption is the only explanation for the marginal incentives to search for a job is discussed, putting into question the reduction in labor supply caused by social insurance, usually interpreted as solely an evidence of a dynamic moral hazard caused by a substitution effect. In addition, the paper presents one characterization of optimal unemployment insurance contracts in environments in which workers experience multiple unemployment spells. Finally, an extension to multiple aggregate shocks environment is considered. The paper ends with a numerical analysis of the implications of i.i.d. shocks to the optimal unemployment insurance mechanism.

Optimal unemployment insurance for couples

This work analyzes the optimal design of an unemployment insurance program for couples, whose joint search problem in the labor market differ significantly from the problem faced by single agents. We use a version of the sequential search model of the labor market adapted to married agents to compare optimal constant policies for single and married agents, as well as characterize the optimal constant policy when the agency faces single and married agents simultaneously. Our main result is that an agency that gives equal weights to single and married agents will want to give equal utility promises to both types of agents and spend more on the single agent.

Essays on Unemployment Insurance

Can the potential availability of unemployment insurance (UI) affect the behavior of employed workers and the duration of their employment spells? After discussing few straightforward reasons why UI may affect employment duration, I apply a regression kink design (RKD) to address this question using linked employer-employee data from the Brazilian labor market. Exploiting the UI schedule, I find that potential benefit level significantly affects the duration of employment spells. This effect is local to low skilled workers and, surprisingly, indicates that a 1\% increase in unemployment benefits increases job duration by around 0.3\%. Such result is driven by the fact that higher UI decreases the probability of job quits, which are not covered by UI in Brazil. These estimates are robust to permutation tests and a number of falsification tests. I develop a reduced-form welfare formula to assess the economic relevance of this result. Based on that, I show that the positive effect on employment duration implies in a higher optimal benefit level. Moreover, the formula shows that the elasticity of employment duration impacts welfare just with the same weight as the well-known elasticity of unemployment duration to benefit level.

Fluorescent Chrysotile From Sterling Hill, New Jersey

Minerals of the serpentine group, notably chrysotile and to a lesser extent lizardite, are widely present at both Franklin and Sterling Hill. They are late-stage hydrous magnesium silicate minerals that formed by hydrothermal alteration of earlier species, among them willemite and tephroite, and are also common components of hydrothermal veins cutting the ore bodies and the enclosing marble (Dunn, 1995). Although long recognized in the area (Fowler, 1825), local serpentine was not documented as a fluorescent mineral until 2004, when a brief description of a fluorescent serpentine from Franklin appeared in The Picking Table (Cianciulli, 2004). In the present paper, we describe additional examples of fluorescent serpentine, most from Sterling Hill.