IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this article

The Role of Unemployment Insurance in an Economy with Liquidity Constraints and Moral Hazard

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Hansen, Gary D
  • Imrohoroglu, Ayse

Abstract

The potential welfare benefits of unemployment insurance, along with the optimal replacement ratio, are studied using a quantitative dynamic general equilibrium model. To provide a role for unemployment insurance, agents in the authors' economy face exogenous idiosyncratic employment shocks and are unable to borrow or insure themselves through private markets. In the absence of moral hazard, replacement ratios as high as 0.65 are optimal and the welfare benefits of unemployment insurance are quite large. However, if there is moral hazard and the replacement ratio is not set optimally, the economy can be much worse-off than it would be without unemployment insurance. Copyright 1992 by University of Chicago Press.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/261809
File Function: full text
Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to JSTOR subscribers. See http://www.jstor.org for details.

As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.

Article provided by University of Chicago Press in its journal Journal of Political Economy.

Volume (Year): 100 (1992)
Issue (Month): 1 (February)
Pages: 118-142

as
in new window

Handle: RePEc:ucp:jpolec:v:100:y:1992:i:1:p:118-42
Contact details of provider: Web page: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JPE/

Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

References listed on IDEAS
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.:

as
in new window


  1. David Easley & Nicholas M. Kiefer & Uri Possen, 1985. "An Equilibrium Analysis of Optimal Unemployment Insurance and Taxation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 100(Supplemen), pages 989-1010.
  2. Mehra, Rajnish & Prescott, Edward C., 1985. "The equity premium: A puzzle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 145-161, March.
  3. repec:fth:prinin:243 is not listed on IDEAS
  4. Hansen, Gary D., 1985. "Indivisible labor and the business cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 309-327, November.
  5. Topel, Robert H, 1983. "On Layoffs and Unemployment Insurance," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(4), pages 541-559, September.
  6. Dale T. Mortensen, 1977. "Unemployment Insurance and Job Search Decisions," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 30(4), pages 505-517, July.
  7. Flemming, J. S., 1978. "Aspects of optimal unemployment insurance : Search, leisure, savings and capital market imperfections," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 403-425, December.
  8. Burdett, Kenneth & Wright, Randall, 1989. "Unemployment Insurance and Short-Time Compensation: The Effects on Layoffs, Hours per Worker, and Wages," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(6), pages 1479-1496, December.
  9. Rebecca M. Blank & David E. Card, 1991. "Recent Trends in Insured and Uninsured Unemployment: Is There an Explanation?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 106(4), pages 1157-1189.
  10. Rogerson, Richard, 1988. "Indivisible labor, lotteries and equilibrium," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 3-16, January.
  11. Finis Welch, 1977. "What Have We Learned from Empirical Studies of Unemployment Insurance?," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 30(4), pages 451-461, July.
  12. Kim B. Clark & Lawrence H. Summers, 1982. "Unemployment Insurance and Labor Force Transitions," NBER Working Papers 0920, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  13. Wright, Randall, 1986. "The redistributive roles of unemployment insurance and the dynamics of voting," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 377-399, December.
  14. Ehrenberg, Ronald G & Oaxaca, Ronald L, 1976. "Unemployment Insurance, Duration of Unemployment, and Subsequent Wage Gain," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 66(5), pages 754-766, December.
  15. Feldstein, Martin S, 1978. "The Effect of Unemployment Insurance on Temporary Layoff Unemployment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 68(5), pages 834-846, December.
  16. Martin Neil Baily, 1977. "Unemployment Insurance as Insurance for Workers," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 30(4), pages 495-504, July.
  17. Imrohoruglu, Ayse, 1989. "Cost of Business Cycles with Indivisibilities and Liquidity Constraints," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(6), pages 1364-1383, December.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. New insights on optimal unemployment insurance
    by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2008-12-23 12:36:00

RePEc Biblio mentions

As found on the RePEc Biblio, the curated bibliography for Economics:
  1. > Labor Economics > Unemployment Insurance > Optimal Unemployment Insurance
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as
in new window


Cited by:
This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.

This item is featured on the following reading lists or Wikipedia pages:

  1. Economic Logic blog

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ucp:jpolec:v:100:y:1992:i:1:p:118-42. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Journals Division)

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.