Reported vs. Actual Job Search by Unemployment Insurance Claimants.

This study compares self-reported job search contacts of unemployment insurance recipients with independently verified job-search contacts. For the total sample, reported contacts averaged 2.61 per week compared with actual contacts of only 1.78 per week; nearly one-fifth of the sample made no job contacts for the single weeks analyzed. The separate equations estimated for reported and actual job contacts suggest that systematic misreporting may distort the conclusions-particularly for the impact of unemployment insurance benefits on search intensity-that would result from analyzing reported (rather than actual) contacts. Some implications of the findings for reported unemployment rates also are explored.