Steve DeLoach, a professor of economics, presented results from his newest research project at RWTH Aachen University on May 3, 2011. The paper, "Discouraging Workers: Estimating Impacts of Macroeconomic Shocks on Search Intensity of Unemployed," is co-authored by assistant professor Mark Kurt.
The paper studies the effects of recent changes in mass layoffs, stock market prices, and housing values on the time unemployed workers spend searching for jobs. Preliminary results confirm that workers decrease their search efforts as layoffs rise, but increase their search as stock and housing values rise.
They also find no evidence that unemployment insurance significantly affects search efforts of the unemployed.