Contrôle des chômeurs : sanctions et degré de preuve dans un modèle avec hétérogénéité de richesse

This article focuses on the application of the legislation on the control of the unemployed by Pole Emploi advisors. We develop a three-agent model (legislator, controller and unemployed) with information asymmetries: the search effort of the unemployed and the behaviour of the controller are not perfectly observable. We show that when the legislator provides for stricter sanctions, the controller, being error averse, chooses a higher degree of proof in order to avoid unfairly sanctioning the unemployed. Tougher sanctions thus have an ambiguous effect on the incentives provided to the unemployed. This effect is heterogeneous depending on their level of wealth. The introduction of a pre-sanction warning system strengthens the credibility of control by revealing information about the behavior of the unemployed.