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Unemployment insurance with a hidden labor market

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Listed author(s):
  • Álvarez-Parra, Fernando
  • Sánchez, Juan M.

Abstract

We consider the problem of optimal unemployment insurance (UI) in a repeated moral hazard framework. Unlike existing literature, unemployed individuals can secretly participate in a hidden labor market. This extension modifies the standard problem in three dimensions. First, it imposes an endogenous lower bound for the lifetime utility that a contract can deliver. Second, it breaks the identity between unemployment payments and consumption. And third, it hardens the encouragement of search effort. The optimal unemployment insurance system in an economy with a hidden labor market is simple, with an initial phase in which payments are relatively flat during unemployment and with no payments for long-term unemployed individuals. This scheme differs substantially from the one prescribed without a hidden labor market and resembles unemployment protection programs in many countries.

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Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Journal of Monetary Economics.

Volume (Year): 56 (2009)
Issue (Month): 7 (October)
Pages: 954-967

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Handle: RePEc:eee:moneco:v:56:y:2009:i:7:p:954-967
Contact details of provider: Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505566

Keywords: Unemployment insurance Hidden labor markets Recursive contracts;

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  15. Thomas, Jonathan & Worrall, Tim, 1990. "Income fluctuation and asymmetric information: An example of a repeated principal-agent problem," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 367-390, August.
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