Unemployment Effects of Stay-at-Home Orders: Evidence from High-Frequency Claims Data

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<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>We use the high-frequency, decentralized implementation of stay-at-home (SAH) orders in the United States to disentangle the labor market effects of SAH orders from the general economic disruption wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that each week of SAH exposure increased a state's weekly initial unemployment insurance (UI) claims by 1.9% of its employment level relative to other states. A back-of-the-envelope calculation implies that of the 17 million UI claims between March 14 and April 4, only 4 million were attributable to SAH orders. We present a currency union model to provide conditions for mapping this estimate to aggregate employment losses.</jats:p>