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The trade-off between insurance and incentives in differentiated unemployment policies

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  • Spinnewijn, Johannes

Abstract

In this paper, I revisit the central trade-off between insurance and incentives in the design of unemployment insurance policies. The generosity of unemployment insurance benefits differs not only across countries, but also across workers within countries. After illustrating some important dimensions of heterogeneity in a cross-country analysis, I extend the standard Baily–Chetty formula to identify the key empirical moments and elasticities required to evaluate the differentiated unemployment policy within a country. I also review some prior work and aim to provide guidance for future work trying to inform the design of unemployment policies.

Suggested Citation

  • Spinnewijn, Johannes, 2020. "The trade-off between insurance and incentives in differentiated unemployment policies," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 104718, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:104718
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    2. Khoury, Laura, 2023. "Unemployment benefits and redundancies: Incidence and timing effects," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 226(C).
    3. Mosley, Max, 2021. "The importance of being earners: Modelling the implications of changes to welfare contributions on macroeconomic recovery," MPRA Paper 108620, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    heterogeneity; policy design; unemployment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
    • J65 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment Insurance; Severance Pay; Plant Closings

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