People who are unemployed start their job search with needed optimism, like new entrepreneurs. Their optimism is generally too high for their situation, particularly when they have been unemployed for a long time, but their lack of success finding a job does little to temper their optimism. New research suggests these overly optimistic beliefs “explain about 15 percent of the high incidence of long-term unemployment.”
by Joseph Coletti
Senior Fellow, Fiscal Studies, John Locke Foundation
