The paper describes and evaluates unemployment insurance savings accounts (UISAs) – a relatively new and not well-known way of providing unemployment benefits. The UISAs reduce work disincentives by allowing recipients to keep their own unused unemployment contributions, and offer the...

This paper solves and estimates a stochastic model of optimal inter-temporal behavior to assess how changes in the design of the unemployment benefits and pension systems in Brazil could affect savings rates, the share of time that individuals spend outside of the formal sector, and retirement...

By simulating the working of the unemployment insurance savings accounts (UISAs) in Slovenia using a methodology similar to Feldstein and Altman (1998), the paper examines two questions: how viable is this system as an alternative to traditional unemployment insurance (UI) system, and how the...

Several middle income countries are considering reforms to their severance pay regulations to both increase flexibility for firms and better protect workers. Policy discussions then often revolve around whether to adopt an unemployment insurance (UI) scheme or unemployment individual savings...

Partnering with a savings product provider in Kenya, we tested the extent to which behavioral interventions and financial incentives can increase the saving rate of individuals with low and irregular income. Our experiment lasted for six months and included a total of twelve conditions. The...

In reforming unemployment benefit systems, the policy debate should be on the appropriate level of benefits, the subsidies needed for people who cannot contribute enough, and how to finance the subsidies, rather than on whether unemployment insurance or individual unemployment savings accounts...

We develop a model of job search and use it to assess the effects that the Brazilian unemployment benefit system has on exit rates from unemployment. In our setup, unemployed workers receive job offers from the formal and informal sectors and decide whether to accept them or wait. Only jobs in...

Partnering with a savings product provider in Kenya, we tested the extent to which behavioral interventions and financial incentives can increase the saving rate of individuals with low and irregular income. Our experiment lasted for six months and included a total of twelve conditions. The...