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Optimal unemployment insurance and redistribution

Author

Listed:
  • Robin Boadway
  • Katherine Cuff

Abstract

We characterize optimal income taxation and unemployment insurance in a search‐matching framework where both voluntary and involuntary unemployment are endogenous and Nash bargaining determines wages. Individuals decide whether to participate as job seekers and if so, how much search effort to exert. Unemployment insurance trades off insurance versus search and participation incentives. We also allow for different productivity types so there is a redistributive role for the income tax and show that a piecewise linear wage tax internalizes the macro effects arising from endogenous wages. Type‐specific lump‐sum taxes and transfers can then redistribute between individuals of differing skills and employment states. Our analysis embeds optimal unemployment insurance into an extensive‐margin optimal redistribution framework where transfers to the involuntarily and voluntarily unemployed can differ, and nests several standard models in the literature.

Suggested Citation

  • Robin Boadway & Katherine Cuff, 2018. "Optimal unemployment insurance and redistribution," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 20(3), pages 303-324, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jpbect:v:20:y:2018:i:3:p:303-324
    DOI: 10.1111/jpet.12287
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    Cited by:

    1. Ferey, Antoine, 2022. "Redistribution and Unemployment Insurance," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 345, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    2. Sahin Avcioglu & Bilgehan Karabay, 2020. "Labor market regulation under self‐enforcing contracts," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 22(6), pages 1965-2018, December.
    3. Germain, Antoine, 2023. "Basic income versus fairness: redistribution with inactive agents," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2023022, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    4. Lavecchia, Adam M., 2020. "Minimum wage policy with optimal taxes and unemployment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    5. Guillaume Wilemme, 2021. "Optimal Taxation to Correct Job Mismatching," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 40, pages 170-197, April.
    6. Boadway,Robin & Cuff,Katherine, 2022. "Tax Policy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781108949453, November.
    7. da Costa, Carlos E. & Maestri, Lucas J. & Santos, Marcelo R., 2022. "Redistribution with labor market frictions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • H3 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents
    • J6 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers

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