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Optimal Welfare-to-Work Programs

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Author Info
Pavoni, Nicola
Violante, Giovanni L

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Abstract

A Welfare-to-Work (WTW) program is a mix of government expenditures on various labor market policies targeted to the unemployed (e.g., unemployment insurance, job search monitoring, social assistance, wage subsidies). This paper provides a dynamic principal-agent framework suitable for analyzing chief features of an optimal WTW program such as the sequence and duration of the different policies, the dynamic pattern of payments along the unemployment spell, and the emergence of taxes/subsidies upon re-employment. The optimal program endogenously generates an absorbing policy of last resort ('social assistance') characterized by a constant lifetime payment and no active participation by the agent. Human capital depreciation is a necessary condition for policy transitions to be part of an optimal WTW program. The typical sequence of policies is quite simple: the program starts with standard unemployment insurance, then switches into monitored search and, finally, into social assistance. The optimal benefits are decreasing during unemployment insurance and constant during both job search monitoring and social assistance. Whereas taxes (subsidies) can be either increasing or decreasing with duration during unemployment insurance, they must decrease (increase) during a phase of job search monitoring. In a calibration exercise, we use our model to analyze quantitatively the features of the optimal program for the U.S. economy. With respect to the existing U.S. system, the optimal WTW scheme delivers sizeable welfare gains to unskilled workers because the incentives to search for a job can be retained even while delivering more insurance, and using costly monitoring less intensively.

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Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number 5937.

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Date of creation: Nov 2006
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Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:5937

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Keywords: human capital job search monitoring recursive contracts unemployment insurance welfare-to-work

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information
H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
J65 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies - - - Unemployment Insurance; Severance Pay; Plant Closings

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Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Stefanie Behncke & Markus Fröhlich & Michael Lechner, 2007. "Unemployed and their Caseworkers: Should they be Friends or Foes?," University of St. Gallen Department of Economics working paper series 2007 2007-45, Department of Economics, University of St. Gallen. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Torben M. Andersen & Michael Svarer, 2008. "The role of workfare in striking a balance between incentives and insurance in the labour market," Economics Working Papers 2008-05, School of Economics and Management, University of Aarhus. [Downloadable!]
  3. Trine Filges & John Kennes & Birthe Larsen & Torben Tranæs, 2007. "Labour Market Policy and the Equity-Efficiency Trade-Off," IZA Discussion Papers 2824, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  4. Filges, Trine & Kennes, John & Larsen, Birthe & Tranæs, Torben, 2006. "Labour Market Programmes and the Equity-Efficiency Trade-off," Working Papers 11-2005, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  5. Pavoni, Nicola & Violante, Giovanni L, 2006. "Optimal Welfare-to-Work Programs," CEPR Discussion Papers 5937, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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