Designing a good unemployment insurance scheme is a delicate matter. In a system with no or little insurance, households may be subject to a high income risk, whereas excessively generous unemployment insurance systems are known to lead to high unemployment rates and are costly both from a fiscal perspective and for society as a whole. Andreas Pollak investigates what an optimal unemployment insurance system would look like, i.e. a system that constitutes the best possible compromise between income security and incentives to work. Using theoretical economic models and complex numerical simulations, he studies the effects of benefit levels and payment durations on unemployment and welfare. As the models allow for considerable heterogeneity of households, including a history-dependent labor productivity, it is possible to analyze how certain policies affect individuals in a specific age, wealth or skill group. The most important aspect of an unemployment insurance system turns out to be the benefits paid to the long-term unemployed. If this parameter is chosen too high, a large number of households may get caught in a long spell of unemployment with little chance of finding work again. Based on the predictions in these models, the so-called "Hartz IV" labor market reform recently adopted in Germany should have highly favorable effects on the unemployment rates and welfare in the long run.

Connecticut Employment Law is a comprehensive handbook and a practical survey of the law that governs employer-employee relations in Connecticut. Author Pamela J. Moore draws on her years of experience as a labor and employment attorney in Hartford to explain the complexities of this all-important field of practice. Coverage includes: The Connecticut Fair Employment Practices Act, which prohibits so many forms of discrimination in employment, and the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, which enforces it. Contracts of employment express and implied, the employment-at-will doctrine, the prohibition against retaliatory discharge, and the duties that employers and employees owe to each other. Connecticut's wage and hour legislation and the litigation that flows from violating the minimum-wage and overtime standards. Privacy rights in the workplace, including a timely discussion of an employees right to privacy in social media and digital communications and an analysis of an employers right to conduct drug tests and its interaction with newly enacted legislation H.R. 5389 that authorizes the palliative use of marijuana in Connecticut