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Unemployment Insurance (unemployment + insurance)
Selected AbstractsVoting on Unemployment InsuranceINTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 4 2001Stéphane Pallage In this article, we ask heterogeneous agents in a dynamic general equilibrium economy to vote on the generosity of their unemployment insurance program. We observe the influence on their vote of (1) moral hazard, (2) private alternatives, and (3) changes in employment status. Agents differ in skills, employment probabilities, income prospects, and assets. For a calibration to the United States, we show that: (1) in contrast to the literature, plausible levels of moral hazard need not induce large cuts in optimal benefits. (2) Switching to private insurance is rejected for most status quo, though it would be as generous. (3) Skill groups vote as a block. For reasonable discount factors, solidarity is never broken simultaneously for more than one group. [source] Improving Incentives in Unemployment Insurance: A Review of Recent ResearchJOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SURVEYS, Issue 3 2006Peter Fredriksson Abstract., This paper provides a review of the recent literature on how incentives in unemployment insurance can be improved. We are particularly concerned with three instruments, i.e. the duration of benefit payments (or more generally the time sequencing of benefits), monitoring in conjunction with sanctions, and workfare. Our reading of the theoretical literature is that the case for imposing a penalty on less active job search is fairly solid. A growing number of empirical studies, including randomized experiments, are in line with this conclusion. [source] Unemployment Insurance and the Timing of Layoffs and RecallsLABOUR, Issue 3 2003pán Jurajda This note provides the motivation to fill a gap in the empirical literature by showing that the optimal firm response to workers' job search behaviour (Mortensen, Industrial and Labor Relations Review 30: 505,517, 1977) is to lay off those workers with high unemployment insurance and recall workers as they approach expiry of their benefits. [source] Self-financing Unemployment Insurance and Bargaining StructureLABOUR, Issue 2 2003Helge Sanner For this purpose, we compare the outcome of a model with a uniform payroll tax to a model where workers pay taxes according to their systematic risk of unemployment. Our results highlight the importance of the bargaining structure for the assessment of a particular UI scheme. Most importantly, it depends on the relative size of the unions whether efficiency favors a uniform or a differentiated UI scheme. [source] Unemployment insurance and the business cycle*INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 3 2003Laura Brown An equilibrium model is developed to study the interaction of the business cycle, unemployment insurance (UI), and the labor market for young men in Canada. The model combines optimal job offer, layoff, and recall decisions within a numerically solved and restricted Bayesian,Nash equilibrium. We consider the long-run implications of changes made to unemployment insurance in Canada during the 1990s. The changes lead to equilibrium increases in average rates of unemployment, layoffs, and recalls. Eliminating UI lowers the equilibrium unemployment rate and average observed earnings. UI policy affects the timing of cycles of endogenous outcomes relative to the productivity cycle. [source] Would you like to shrink the welfare state?ECONOMIC POLICY, Issue 32 2001A survey of European citizens The fundamental problems facing European welfare states , high unemployment and unsustainable public pensions plans in particular , have been in the political debate for years, so why have we seen so little reform? To find out, we surveyed the opinions of citizens in France, Germany, Italy and Spain on their welfare states and on various reform options. This is what we found. First, most workers underestimate the costs of public pensions, though they are aware of their unsustainability. Second, the status quo is a majoritarian outcome: a majority of citizens opposes cuts to social security and welfare spending, but also opposes further increases. Since population ageing without reform implies an automatic expansion, our results suggest that most citizens would favour reforms that stabilize but do not shrink the current welfare states. Third, many would welcome changes in the allocation of benefits. A large number of workers in Italy and Germany would be willing to opt out of public pensions and replace them with private pensions, though the details of how this scheme is formulated matter for its popularity. And many Italians and Spaniards would welcome an extension of the coverage of unemployment insurance. Fourth, conflicts over the welfare state are mainly shaped by the economic situation of the respondent, while political ideology plays a limited role. Disagreements are found along three dimensions: young versus old, rich versus poor, and ,outsider' versus ,insider' in terms of labour market status. From a practical point of view, this suggests that there is scope to bundle reforms strategically in order to build a large and mixed coalition of supporters. , Tito Boeri, Axel Börsch-Supan and Guido Tabellini [source] Household Unemployment and the Labour Supply of Married WomenECONOMICA, Issue 270 2001Paul Bingley A recent reform to the UK unemployment insurance (UI) system has reduced the duration of entitlement from 12 to six months. The UI and welfare systems interact in the UK in such a way that exhaustion of UI for married individuals has potentially large disincentive effects on the labour supply of spouses. A model of labour supply is estimated for married women allowing for endogenous unemployment durations of husbands and wives. We distinguish between transfer programme induced incentive effects; correlation between labour supply and wages within couples; complementarity between the leisure times of spouses; and a discouraged worker effect. [source] From ,welfare without work' to ,buttressed liberalization': The shifting dynamics of labor market adjustment in France and GermanyEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 3 2008MARK I. VAIL Scholars blame this disease on dysfunctional political arrangements, deep insider-outsider cleavages and failed systems of social partnership. As a result, the two countries are said to be more or less permanently mired in a context of high unemployment that is highly resistant to remediation. This article departs from this conventional wisdom in two important respects. First, it argues that France and Germany have undertaken major reforms of their labor market policies and institutions during the past decade and remediated many of their longstanding employment traps. Second, it shows that the political arrangements that adherents of the ,welfare without work' thesis identify as reasons for sclerosis have evolved quite dramatically. The article supports these arguments by exploring some of the most significant recent labor market reforms in the two countries, as well as the shifting political relationships that have driven these changes. In both countries, recent labor market reforms have followed a trajectory of ,buttressed liberalization'. This has involved, on the one hand, significant liberalization of labor market regulations such as limits on overtime and worker protections such as unemployment insurance. On the other hand, it has entailed a set of supportive, ,buttressing' reforms involving an expansion of active labor market policies and support for workers' efforts to find jobs. The article concludes that these developments provide reasons for optimism about the countries' economic futures and offer important lessons about how public policy can confront problems of labor market stagnation. [source] Labor Taxation in Search Equilibrium with Home ProductionGERMAN ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 4 2002Bertil Holmlund Conventional models of equilibrium unemployment typically imply that proportional taxes on labor earnings are neutral with respect to unemployment as long as the tax does not affect the replacement rate provided by unemployment insurance, i.e. unemployment benefits relative to after,tax earnings. When home production is an option, the conventional results may no longer hold. This paper uses a search equilibrium model with home production to examine the employment and welfare implications of labor taxes. The employment effect of a rise in a proportional tax is found to be negative for sufficiently low replacement rates, whereas it is ambiguous for moderate and high replacement rates. Numerical calibrations of the model indicate that employment generally falls when labor taxes are raised. [source] Unions and Unemployment Insurance Benefits Receipt: Evidence from the Current Population SurveyINDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, Issue 2 2004John W. Budd Using data from the January 1996 Current Population Survey's Displaced Worker Supplement, this article analyzes the effect of union representation on the likelihood that individuals eligible for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits receive UI benefits. For white-collar workers, unions do not have a significant effect on the probability of UI benefit receipt. Eligible blue-collar workers laid off from union jobs are approximately 23 percent more likely than comparable nonunion workers to receive UI benefits. [source] The end of the Ghent system as trade union recruitment machinery?INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS JOURNAL, Issue 6 2009Jens Lind ABSTRACT During the past 15 years, membership rates in many unions have been declining in Denmark, Finland and Sweden. Reasons for this decline may be similar to what has happened in other countries,occupational change and neoliberal ideology and policies,but in the three Ghent countries, changes in the unemployment insurance system may also have affected trade union membership losses. The major part of the decline has taken place in a period of low unemployment, which may have reduced the employee incentive to take unemployment insurance, but will increasing unemployment rates mean more trade union members? At least for the LO- and SAK-affiliated trade unions, it seems that trade union independent unemployment funds may be alternatives for workers who take unemployment insurance. [source] Unemployment insurance and the business cycle*INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 3 2003Laura Brown An equilibrium model is developed to study the interaction of the business cycle, unemployment insurance (UI), and the labor market for young men in Canada. The model combines optimal job offer, layoff, and recall decisions within a numerically solved and restricted Bayesian,Nash equilibrium. We consider the long-run implications of changes made to unemployment insurance in Canada during the 1990s. The changes lead to equilibrium increases in average rates of unemployment, layoffs, and recalls. Eliminating UI lowers the equilibrium unemployment rate and average observed earnings. UI policy affects the timing of cycles of endogenous outcomes relative to the productivity cycle. [source] Working at the boundary between market and flexicurity: Housekeeping in Danish hotelsINTERNATIONAL LABOUR REVIEW, Issue 4 2009Tor ERIKSSON Abstract. Though housekeeping in Danish hotels is unskilled, low-paid work, because of Denmark's compressed wage structure it is comparatively well paid. The authors examine the working conditions and experience of housekeepers in eight hotels of various types, to establish the industry's response to growing competition and pressure to restructure. Approaches include reorganizing work, increased work intensity, outsourced and in-house housekeeping, and Denmark's own "flexicurity". Flexible work arrangements, job security and in-kind social benefits prove to compensate for scanty unemployment insurance and career prospects. [source] Improving Incentives in Unemployment Insurance: A Review of Recent ResearchJOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SURVEYS, Issue 3 2006Peter Fredriksson Abstract., This paper provides a review of the recent literature on how incentives in unemployment insurance can be improved. We are particularly concerned with three instruments, i.e. the duration of benefit payments (or more generally the time sequencing of benefits), monitoring in conjunction with sanctions, and workfare. Our reading of the theoretical literature is that the case for imposing a penalty on less active job search is fairly solid. A growing number of empirical studies, including randomized experiments, are in line with this conclusion. [source] Financing Unemployment Benefits: Dismissal versus Employment TaxesLABOUR, Issue 3 2006Florian Baumann We compare dismissal and employment taxes in a model with search frictions. Employment taxes give rise to externalities because firms do not take into account the effects their dismissal decisions have on others. These externalities can be tackled by using dismissal taxes to finance unemployment insurance. Taking into account the budget for unemployment insurance, employment taxes can be reduced by more than is necessary to offset the adverse effect of dismissal taxes on the value of the firm. The introduction of dismissal taxes leads to higher job creation and lower unemployment. [source] Unemployment Insurance and the Timing of Layoffs and RecallsLABOUR, Issue 3 2003pán Jurajda This note provides the motivation to fill a gap in the empirical literature by showing that the optimal firm response to workers' job search behaviour (Mortensen, Industrial and Labor Relations Review 30: 505,517, 1977) is to lay off those workers with high unemployment insurance and recall workers as they approach expiry of their benefits. [source] Was kann die Aktive Arbeitsmarktpolitik in Deutschland aus der Evaluationsforschung in anderen europäischen Ländern lernen?PERSPEKTIVEN DER WIRTSCHAFTSPOLITIK, Issue 2 2002Viktor Steiner Most evaluation studies for Germany's active labor market policy (ALMP) indicate that subsidized employment programs in the public sector (public works programs, "Arbeitsbeschaffungsmaßnahmen") and publicly funded training programs have, on average, no or even negative effects on individual re-employment probabilities. This paper provides possible explanations for the ineffectiveness of these programs, where we focus on heterogeneous treatment effects, which are not accounted for in the German evaluation studies due to lack of data, and locking-in effects, in particular related to the relatively high level of income support for participants in these programs. Since there is very little direct evidence on these effects for Germany to date, we draw on results from evaluation studies for other European countries. We argue that the success of ALMP is to a large extent determined by design features like the targeting of particular groups and the incentives from the co-ordination with unemployment insurance as well as the incentives of program administrators and local governments. [source] Trading Speed for Accuracy?POLICY STUDIES JOURNAL, Issue 2 2008Accommodation in the U.S. Unemployment Insurance Program, Managing Goal Conflict Public managers must often cope with competing and conflicting goals. The common formulation is to assume that managers must trade-off goals against each other. But is this always true? An alternative hypothesis is that sometimes managers may instead be able to improve outcomes on multiple goals simultaneously,by altering management practices. We test this "trade-off" notion using a panel of state-level administrative data from the U.S. unemployment insurance (UI) system from 1997 to 2004 and qualitative interviews from selected states. The trade-off examined is timeliness of UI benefit payments versus the quality of UI determinations. In general, we find that state administrators often adopt management practices that facilitate improved outcomes for both timeliness and quality, indicating no trade-off but instead a synergy between outcomes. We also find evidence of a feedback effect linking higher performance on timeliness to better quality determinations. [source] Heterogeneity, Efficiency and Asset Allocation with Endogenous Labor Supply: The Static CaseTHE MANCHESTER SCHOOL, Issue 3 2001Marcelo Bianconi We study the implications of consumption and labor allocations with ex ante efficiency and possibly ex post inefficiency on international/interregional portfolio diversification. The answers we obtain depend crucially on the market regime relative to unemployment insurance. If there are complete markets for unemployment insurance, changes in asset allocation are small in the presence of ex post inefficiency, but if there are incomplete markets for unemployment insurance, changes in asset allocation can be large. The direction of the asset movement is towards more diversification. [source] UNEMPLOYMENT POLICIES IN AN ECONOMY WITH ADVERSE SELECTIONBULLETIN OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH, Issue 2 2007Noritaka Kudoh D82; J65; J68 ABSTRACT This paper studies the effects of unemployment policies in a simple static general equilibrium model with adverse selection in the labour market. Firms offer a contract that induces the self-selection of workers. In equilibrium, all unskilled workers are screened out and some skilled workers are rationed out. It is shown that the provision of unemployment insurance raises involuntary unemployment by encouraging adverse selection, while unemployment assistance , or subsidy to unemployment , reduces involuntary unemployment. A simple efficiency wage model is also presented to show that either of the two policies reduces employment by taxing effort and subsidizing shirking. The key is whether the social role of unemployment is a sorting device or a worker discipline device. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||