UI BENEFIT AND ELIGIBILITY CALCULATOR BASED ON DOL INFORMATION and Cullen-Gruber 
(1998)  

These stata do files and datasets contain information on  UI laws by state.  The 
notes at the top of lawassign.do file explains how the program works, and what 
inputs are needed to assign an eligiblity dummy + UI benefit rate.  The stata 
dataset uilaws.dta gives replacement rates and max benefit levels by state.  
Everything should be accurate, with the possible exception of the eligibility 
dummy in a few states after 1994 (although my guess is these are pretty close as 
well).  

Important caution in using these files: There are two state codes, and you need 
to  be careful to merge using the right one. One is used by SIPP (FIPS codes) 
and  the other is used by Cullen-Gruber (alphabetical).  The stata dataset  
statecodes.dta gives a crosswalk between these two state codes. In the do  file, 
I merge the uilaws info onto the sipp data by sippst. I then merge on the 
statecodes file, and run the lawassign.do program (which assigns  benefits based 
on the st variable).  This procedure assigns the UI  benefits correctly, but is 
somewhat confusing because users may  think that the uilaws are directly 
compatible with the lawassign.do program without the statecodes crosswalk.  

The stand-alone dataset avguibens.dta contains average UI benefits by state from 
the DoL.

Please let me know about any updates you make to these programs or if you 
distribute these programs to others.


