The Heterogeneous Effects of Social Assistance and Unemployment Insurance: Evidence from a Life-Cycle Model of Family Labor Supply and Savings

Peter Haan and Victoria Prowse

No 20, Berlin School of Economics Discussion Papers from Berlin School of Economics

Abstract: We empirically analyze the heterogeneous welfare effects of unemployment insurance and social assistance. We estimate a structural life-cycle model of singles’ and married couples’ labor supply and savings decisions. The model includes heterogeneity by age, education, wealth, sex and household composition. In aggregate, social assistance dominates unemployment insurance; however, the opposite holds true for married men, whose leisure time declines more than that of their spouses when unemployment insurance is reduced. A revenue-neutral rebalancing of social support away from unemployment insurance and toward social assistance increases aggregate welfare. Income pooling in married households decreases the welfare value of social assistance.

Keywords: Life-cycle labor supply; Family labor supply; Unemployment insurance; Social assistance; Household savings; Employment risk; Added worker effect; Intra-household insurance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H21 I38 J18 J68 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 87 pages
Date: 2023-06-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dge, nep-lab and nep-pbe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-hsog/files/5012/BSE_DP_0020.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Heterogeneous Effects of Social Assistance and Unemployment Insurance: Evidence from a Life Cycle Model of Family Labor Supply and Savings (2024)
Working Paper: The Heterogeneous Effects of Social Assistance and Unemployment Insurance: Evidence from a Life-Cycle Model of Family Labor Supply and Savings (2023)
Working Paper: The heterogeneous effects of social assistance and unemployment insurance: evidence from a life-cycle model of family labor supply and savings (2023)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bdp:dpaper:0020

DOI: 10.48462/opus4-5012

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Berlin School of Economics Discussion Papers from Berlin School of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Christian Reiter ().