IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/auu/dpaper/440.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Can Supply-Side Policies Reduce Unemployment? Lessons from North America

Author

Listed:
  • Gary Burtless

Abstract

Recent US experience offers lessons about supply-side policies to sustain low unemployment. These include programs to change the skills of the workforce and improve the microeconomic incentives facing workers and employers. Two supply-side policies were greatly expanded after the mid-1980s. Congress established generous earnings supplements, payable to low-income parents, to encourage unskilled workers to find and keep jobs. Social assistance was reformed to limit the duration of benefits and to link payments to recipients’ participation in work preparation and paid employment. Experimental and nonexperimental studies suggest these measures boosted employment among the economically disadvantaged. Compared with other OECD countries, the US maintained strong incentives for employers to create jobs for the hard-to-employ. Payroll tax and regulatory burdens on employers were kept low, and the legal minimum wage fell significantly after 1979. The US experience shows supply-side policies can boost the employment rates of the hard-to-employ and hold down structural unemployment.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Gary Burtless, 2001. "Can Supply-Side Policies Reduce Unemployment? Lessons from North America," CEPR Discussion Papers 440, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Economics, Australian National University.
    • Handle: RePEc:auu:dpaper:440
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cbe.anu.edu.au/researchpapers/CEPR/DP440.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Giuseppe Nicoletti & Stefano Scarpetta & Olivier Boylaud, 2000. "Summary Indicators of Product Market Regulation with an Extension to Employment Protection Legislation," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 226, OECD Publishing.
    2. W. Craig Riddell & Andrew Sharpe, 1998. "The Canada-US Unemployment Rate Gap: An Introduction and Overview," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 24(s1), pages 1-37, February.
    3. Moffitt, Robert, 1985. "Unemployment insurance and the distribution of unemployment spells," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 85-101, April.
    4. Paul T. Decker & Christopher J. L'Leary, 1995. "Evaluating Pooled Evidence from the Reemployment Bonus Experiments," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 30(3), pages 534-550.
    5. Katz, Lawrence F. & Meyer, Bruce D., 1990. "The impact of the potential duration of unemployment benefits on the duration of unemployment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 45-72, February.
    6. Cameron, Stephen V & Heckman, James J, 1993. "The Nonequivalence of High School Equivalents," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 11(1), pages 1-47, January.
    7. Gary Burtless, 1998. "Relative Unemployment in Canada and the United States: An Assessment," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 24(s1), pages 254-263, February.
    8. Burtless, Gary, 1990. "The Economist's Lament: Public Assistance in America," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 57-78, Winter.
    9. Atkinson, Anthony B & Micklewright, John, 1991. "Unemployment Compensation and Labor Market Transitions: A Critical Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 29(4), pages 1679-1727, December.
    10. Gary Burtless, 1985. "Are Targeted Wage Subsidies Harmful? Evidence from a Wage Voucher Experiment," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 39(1), pages 105-114, October.
    11. Meyer, Bruce D. & Rosenbaum, Dan T., 2000. "Making Single Mothers Work: Recent Tax and Welfare Policy and Its Effects," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 53(4), pages 1027-1062, December.
    12. repec:mpr:mprres:1978 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Nickell, Stephen, 1998. "Unemployment: Questions and Some Answers," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(448), pages 802-816, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Patrick J. Wilson & L.J. Perry, 2004. "Forecasting Australian Unemployment Rates using Spectral Analysis," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 7(4), pages 459-480, December.
    2. Matthew Gray & David Stanton, 2004. "Lessons of United States welfare reforms for Australian social policy," Others 0405002, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Krueger, Alan B. & Meyer, Bruce D., 2002. "Labor supply effects of social insurance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 33, pages 2327-2392, Elsevier.
    2. Kelly D. Edmiston, 2006. "Workers’ Compensation and State Employment Growth," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(1), pages 121-145, February.
    3. Jan Boone & Jan Ours, 2012. "Why is There a Spike in the Job Finding Rate at Benefit Exhaustion?," De Economist, Springer, vol. 160(4), pages 413-438, December.
    4. Raj Chetty, 2005. "Why do Unemployment Benefits Raise Unemployment Durations? Moral Hazard vs. Liquidity," NBER Working Papers 11760, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Richard Layte & Tim Callan, 2001. "Unemployment, Welfare Benefits and the Financial Incentive to Work," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 32(2), pages 103-129.
    6. Rafael Lalive & Josef Zweim�ller, "undated". "Benefit Entitlement and the Labor Market: Evidence from a Large-Scale Policy Change," IEW - Working Papers 105, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    7. Hunt, Jennifer, 1995. "The Effect of Unemployment Compensation on Unemployment Duration in Germany," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 13(1), pages 88-120, January.
    8. Peter Fredriksson & Bertil Holmlund, 2006. "Improving Incentives in Unemployment Insurance: A Review of Recent Research," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(3), pages 357-386, July.
    9. Winter-Ebmer, Rudolf, 2003. "Benefit duration and unemployment entry: A quasi-experiment in Austria," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 259-273, April.
    10. repec:mpr:mprres:3520 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Røed, Knut & Jensen, Peter & Thoursie, Anna, 2002. "Unemployment Duration, Incentives and Institutions - A Micro-Econometric Analysis Based on Scandinavian Data," Working Paper Series 3/2002, Stockholm University, Swedish Institute for Social Research.
    12. Lalive, Rafael & Zweimuller, Josef, 2004. "Benefit entitlement and unemployment duration: The role of policy endogeneity," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(12), pages 2587-2616, December.
    13. Carling, Kenneth & Holmlund, Bertil & Vejsiu, Altin, 2001. "Do Benefit Cuts Boost Job Finding? Swedish Evidence from the 1990s," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(474), pages 766-790, October.
    14. Bart, COCKX & Jean, RIES, 2004. "The Exhaustion of Unemployment Benefits in Belgium. Does it Enhance the Probability of Employment ?," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2004016, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    15. Roed, Knut & Nordberg, Morten, 2003. "Temporary layoffs and the duration of unemployment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 381-398, June.
    16. Stephen P. Jenkins & Carlos García-Serrano, 2000. "Re-employment Probabilities for Spanish Men: What Role Does the Unemployment Benefit System Play?," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 216, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    17. van Ours, Jan C. & Vodopivec, Milan, 2004. "How Changes in Benefits Entitlement Affect Job-Finding: Lessons from the Slovenian "Experiment"," IZA Discussion Papers 1181, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Knut Roed & Tao Zhang, 2003. "Does Unemployment Compensation Affect Unemployment Duration?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(484), pages 190-206, January.
    19. Carl Davidson & Stephen A. Woodbury, 1996. "Unemployment Insurance and Unemployment Implications of the Reemployment Bonus Experiments," Book chapters authored by Upjohn Institute researchers, in: Advisory Council on Unemployment Compensation: Background Papers, volume 3, pages KK1-KK37, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    20. Arash Nekoei & Andrea Weber, 2017. "Does Extending Unemployment Benefits Improve Job Quality?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(2), pages 527-561, February.
    21. Milan Vodopivec, 2004. "Income Support for the Unemployed : Issues and Options," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 14922, December.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J38 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Public Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:auu:dpaper:440. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cpanuau.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.