Social insurance such as unemployment insurance is in many countries mandatory for the majority of workers. The extent of such insurance is determined by a political process, i.e. ultimately by the workers themselves. If unemployment were purely accidental then all risk averse workers should...

The self-employed faced strong income losses during the Covid-19 pandemic. Many governments introduced programs to financially support the self-employed during the pandemic, including Germany. The German Ministry for Economic Affairs announced a €50bn emergency-aid program in March 2020,...