In a union of states with partial mobility of households and firms we analyze the setting of minimum wages against the background of unemployment insurance. We find that unemployment insurance is always efficiently organized by decentral decisions. In contrast, for symmetric states only the...

In the United States, workers whose past earnings were below a threshold are generally ineligible for unemployment insurance (UI), creating a discontinuous jump in the value of being unemployed. Using a regression discontinuity design with administrative panel data, we estimate a sizable local...

While extensive research on unemployment insurance (UI) has examined how benefits affect workers' job search, little is known about how eligibility conditions shape firms' hiring decisions. These conditions, often requiring a minimum work history, affect the value workers place on contracts...

Cash benefit programmes have increasingly emphasised conditionality and "demanding" forms of activation in recent decades. Behavioural requirements are now a key element in reforms of unemployment benefits (UB) and related out-of-work benefits in high-income OECD countries, and they are the...

We exploit policy discontinuities in Poland’s unemployment insurance to examine the causal effect of changes to both benefit durations and levels. Using a regression discontinuity approach, we uncover three findings: (1) Higher benefit levels distort employment more than benefit extensions....

We evaluate the effectiveness of Belgium's short-time work (STW) program during the Great Recession, a period when the country recorded the highest STW take-up rate in Europe. STW allows firms to reduce working hours in response to temporary shocks while avoiding layoffs, playing a key role in...

The report assesses options as regards the management and operation of a new Unemployment Benefit Fund (UBF) in Eswatini. Two institutions have been proposed by the Government as potential operators - the Public Sector Pension Fund (PSPF) and the Eswatini National Provident Fund (ENPF). Based on...

Unemployment insurance (UI) acts both as a disincentive for labor supply and as a demand stimulus, which may explain why empirical studies often find limited effects of UI on employment. This paper provides independent estimates of the disincentive effects arising from the largest expansion of...

Female workers in China have a de jure right to maternity benefits, as enshrined in policy and legal documents since the 1950s. This article examines why this entitlement is not always de facto guaranteed as stipulated in the legislation. We use the conceptual framework of gradual institutional...

The long period of fast economic growth in China has created entrenched patterns of dualization in the labour market, and in social security. Chinese law calls for all employment to be formalized and covered by a relatively generous system of five social insurances, including one for...

This paper provides novel insights into labor market dynamics during the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent recovery period in Uruguay. Using social security administrative records, we focus on the gender-differentiated patterns of labor market transitions following the pandemic outbreak,...

This paper tests whether partially unemployed workers value future preserved benefits when they bunch at the kink of the unemployment insurance benefit-withdrawal schedule. I extend the bunching formula of Saez (2010) to a dynamic setting that accounts for the value of future benefits tied to...

When searching for employment, workers consider non-wage job characteristics, such as effort requirements or amenities. We study an environment where unemployed workers search for jobs of different quality in a labor market characterized by directed search. In equilibrium, firms are more likely...

We quantify micro and macro effects of changes in the potential benefit duration (PBD) in unemployment insurance. In Poland, the PBD is 12 months for the newly unemployed if the previous year's county unemployment rate is more than 150% of the national average, and 6 months otherwise. We exploit...

This paper studies how unemployment benefits affect aggregate outcomes through general equilibrium effects. First, we document that lower unemployment benefits tend to reduce the real interest rate in a structural vector autoregression with narrative sign restrictions. Young workers experience...

An important principle of the EU is that mobile persons do not lose their social security rights when moving to another Member State. Therefore, the EU rules on the coordination of social security systems provide that persons are entitled to export their benefits to another Member State. Article...

The EU rules on the coordination of social security systems are based on some key principles protecting the social security rights of persons moving within the EU: a) the determination of a single applicable legislation; b) the prohibition of discrimination, reinforced by the equal treatment of...

Die Bund-Länder-Kommission "Zukunftspakt Pflege" soll bis zum Jahresende 2025 Grundlagen für eine Pflegereform erarbeiten. Ihr Arbeitsauftrag steht unter dem Oberziel der Beitragssatzstabilität. Dazu beschäftigt sich die Kommission unter anderem mit der Frage, ob eine erweiterte...

Die Bund-Länder-Kommission "Zukunftspakt Pflege" soll bis zum Jahresende 2025 Grundlagen für eine Pflegereform erarbeiten. Ihr Arbeitsauftrag steht unter dem Oberziel der Beitragssatzstabilität. Dazu beschäftigt sich die Kommission unter anderem mit der Frage, ob eine erweiterte...

This paper studies the welfare effects associated with the provision of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits when formal workers represent only a small proportion of the labor market and informal workers can submit fraudulent claims for UI benefits. We develop a model that incorporates these...

Die Bundesregierung hat einen umfangreichen Entwurf eines Gesetzes zur Modernisierung der Arbeitslosenversicherung und Arbeitsförderung (SGB-III-Modernisierungsgesetz) vorgelegt, der am 4.11.2024 im Ausschuss für Arbeit und Soziales des Deutschen Bundestags in einer öffentlichen Anhörung zum...

I study the labor market risks associated with being self-employed. I document that the self-employed are subject to larger earnings fluctuations than employees and that they frequently transition into unemployment. Given the self-employed are not eligible to unemployment insurance, I analyze...

Mit dem SGB-III-Modernisierungsgesetz sollen die Arbeitslosenversicherung und die Arbeitsförderung bürgerfreundlicher, transparenter, effizienter und unbürokratischer gestaltet werden. Das IAB nimmt Stellung zu folgenden Aspekten des Referentenentwurfs dieses Gesetzes: Kooperationsplan zur...

We study how the frequency of government transfer payments affects spending behavior. Our empirical approach uses transaction-level data on income and spending and exploits quasi-random delays in the receipt of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits. Spending drops by about half of the loss in...

An unemployed person has the right, under certain conditions and for a limited period, to search for a job in another Member State while retaining the unemployment benefit from the competent Member State. The Portable Document U2 (PD U2) certifies this right.

This report focuses on unemployment and minimum income benefits for people of working age. Individuals with short or no employment records (mainly young people), the self-employed, those with non-standard working arrangements, and the long-term unemployed are often not entitled to higher-tier,...

This report focuses on unemployment and minimum income benefits for people of working age. Individuals with short or no employment records (mainly young people), the self-employed, those with non-standard working arrangements, and the long-term unemployed are often not entitled to higher-tier,...

Do households value access to free health insurance when making labor supply decisions? We address this question by exploiting the 2002 introduction of universal health insurance in Mexico (Seguro Popular, SP), that broke the link between access to health care and job contract. Reduced-form...

This study documents self-employed workers' characteristics associated with their career paths after a business closure in order to improve employment insurance for such workers. Utilizing work history data from the Korean Labor & Income Panel Survey, a competing-risks regression model is...

We quantify micro and macro effects of changes in the potential benefit duration (PBD) in unemployment insurance. In Poland, the PBD is 12 months for the newly unemployed if the previous year's county unemployment rate is more than 150% of the national average, and 6 months otherwise. We exploit...