Optimal Unemployment Insurance and Employment History

S-Tier
Journal: Review of Economic Studies
Year: 2009
Volume: 76
Issue: 3
Pages: 1049-1070

Authors (2)

Score contribution per author:

4.022 = (α=2.01 / 2 authors) × 4.0x S-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

In existing unemployment insurance programmes, it is standard to condition eligibility on the previous employment record of unemployed workers. The purpose of this article is to study conditions under which the efficient contract exhibits these properties. In order to do so, we characterize the optimal unemployment insurance contract in asymmetric information environments in which workers experience multiple unemployment spells. We show that if quits cannot be distinguished from layoffs, it is optimal to condition the benefits paid to unemployed workers on their employment history, in particular, the coverage should increase with the length of previous employment spells. Copyright , Wiley-Blackwell.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:oup:restud:v:76:y:2009:i:3:p:1049-1070
Journal Field
General
Author Count
2
Added to Database
2026-01-26