IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tse/wpaper/25103.html

Unemployment insurance and informality in developing countries

Author

Listed:
  • Bardey, David
  • Jaramillo, Fernando

Abstract

We analyze whether the introduction of unemployment insurance (UI hereafter) benefits in developing countries would reduce the effort made by unemployed to secure a new job in the formal sector. We show that one shot UI benefits unambiguously increase the effort to secure a new job in the formal sector. The relative strength of income/substitution effects only determine how leisure and informal activities are affected. Consequently, our (partial equilibrium) analysis reveals that short term UI benefits in developing countries do not reduce incentives to secure a new formal job and therefore cannot be interpreted as a subsidy to the informal sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Bardey, David & Jaramillo, Fernando, 2011. "Unemployment insurance and informality in developing countries," TSE Working Papers 11-257, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), revised Nov 2011.
    • Handle: RePEc:tse:wpaper:25103
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tse-fr.eu/sites/default/files/medias/doc/wp/pe/11-257.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cahuc, Pierre & Lehmann, Etienne, 2000. "Should unemployment benefits decrease with the unemployment spell?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 135-153, July.
    2. Álvarez-Parra, Fernando & Sánchez, Juan M., 2009. "Unemployment insurance with a hidden labor market," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(7), pages 954-967, October.
    3. Raj Chetty, 2008. "Moral Hazard vs. Liquidity and Optimal Unemployment Insurance," NBER Working Papers 13967, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Hopenhayn, Hugo A & Nicolini, Juan Pablo, 1997. "Optimal Unemployment Insurance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(2), pages 412-438, April.
    5. Raj Chetty, 2008. "Erratum: Moral Hazard versus Liquidity and Optimal Unemployment Insurance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(6), pages 1197-1197, December.
    6. Jacqueline Mazza, 2000. "Unemployment Insurance: Case Studies and Lessons for Latin America and the Caribbean," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 6460, Inter-American Development Bank.
    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. Unemployment insurance in developing economies?
      by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2011-11-01 19:49:00

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Luz Adriana Fl�rez, 2014. "The Efficiency of the Informal Sector on the Search and Matching Framework," Borradores de Economia 11954, Banco de la Republica.
    2. Tamayo, Jorge Andrés & Núñez, Jairo & Medina, Carlos, 2013. "The Unemployment Subsidy Program in Colombia: An Assessment," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 4622, Inter-American Development Bank.

    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. David Bardey & Fernando Jaramillo, 2011. "Unemployment insurance/severance payments and informality in developing countries," Economics Working Paper from Condorcet Center for political Economy at CREM-CNRS 2012-06-ccr, Condorcet Center for political Economy.
    2. David Bardey & Fermando Jaramillo & Ximena Pena, 2013. "Unemployment insurance in the presence of an informal," Documentos de Trabajo 11014, Universidad del Rosario.
    3. Romain Duval & Prakash Loungani, 2021. "Designing Labor Market Institutions in Emerging Market and Developing Economies: A Review of Evidence and IMF Policy Advice," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 63(1), pages 31-83, March.
    4. Konstantinos Tatsiramos & Jan C. Ours, 2014. "Labor Market Effects Of Unemployment Insurance Design," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 284-311, April.
    5. Sebastien Menard & Solenne Tanguy, 2017. "Revisiting Hopenhayn and Nicolini 's optimal unemployment insurance with job search monitoring and sanctions," TEPP Working Paper 2017-08, TEPP.
    6. Joseph, Gilles & Maingé, Paul-Emile, 2023. "Characterization of optimal durations of unemployment benefits in a nonstationary job search model," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 76-93.
    7. Petrunyk, Inna & Pfeifer, Christian, 2018. "Shortening the Potential Duration of Unemployment Benefits and Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Germany," IZA Discussion Papers 11300, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Pontus Rendahl, 2012. "Asset‐Based Unemployment Insurance," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 53(3), pages 743-770, August.
    9. Haroon Bhorat & David Tseng, 2012. "The Newly Unemployed and the UIF Take-up Rate in the South African Labour Market," Working Papers 12147, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    10. Juliana MESÉN VARGAS & Bruno VAN DER LINDEN, 2017. "Is there always a trade-off between insurance and incentives? The case of unemployment with subsistence constraints," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2017014, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    11. Mr. Tom Krebs & Mr. Martin Scheffel, 2016. "Structural Reform in Germany," IMF Working Papers 2016/096, International Monetary Fund.
    12. Tom Krebs & Martin Scheffel, 2016. "Labor Market Institutions and the Cost of Recessions," CESifo Working Paper Series 6262, CESifo.
    13. Oikonomou, Rigas, 2013. "Optimal Unemployment Insurance with Private Insurance," MPRA Paper 55726, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Vargas Juliana Mesén & Linden Bruno Van der, 2019. "Why Cash Transfer Programs Can Both Stimulate and Slow Down Job Finding," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Sciendo & Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 8(1), pages 1-27, June.
    15. Luz Adriana Fl�rez, 2014. "The Efficiency of the Informal Sector on the Search and Matching Framework," Borradores de Economia 11954, Banco de la Republica.
    16. J. Carter Braxton & Gordon Phillips & Kyle Herkenhoff, 2018. "Can the Unemployed Borrow? Implications for Public Insurance," 2018 Meeting Papers 564, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    17. Vejlin, Rune, 2017. "Optimal Unemployment Insurance: How Important Is The Demand Side?," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21(8), pages 2070-2095, December.
    18. Tom Krebs & Martin Scheffel, 2013. "Macroeconomic Evaluation of Labor Market Reform in Germany," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 61(4), pages 664-701, December.
    19. Temel Taskin, 2010. "Unemployment Insurance and Home Production," 2010 Meeting Papers 93, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    20. Cahuc, Pierre, 2014. "Search, flows, job creations and destructions," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 22-29.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions
    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • J65 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment Insurance; Severance Pay; Plant Closings

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:tse:wpaper:25103. 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/tsetofr.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.