Switching from an inclining to a zero-level unemployment benefit profile: Good for work incentives?

Bart Cockx, Koen Declercq, Muriel Dejemeppe, Leda Inga and Bruno Van der Linden

Labour Economics, 2020, vol. 64, issue C

Abstract: This paper evaluates the impact on the transition to work of a policy reform in Belgium that restricted the access to a specific unemployment insurance scheme for young labor market entrants. This scheme entitles youths with no or little labor market experience to unemployment benefits after a waiting period of one year. As of 2015, the Belgian government unexpectedly scrapped benefit eligibility for youths who start the waiting period at the age of 24 or older. The reform implied a change from an inclining to a flat rate (zero-level) benefit profile. We use a difference-in-differences approach to identify the causal impact of this reform on fresh university graduates. Our main finding is that this reform only increases the transition to very short-lived jobs.

Keywords: Youth unemployment; Unemployment insurance; Policy evaluation; Difference-in-differences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J64 J65 J68 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927537120300221
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Switching from an Inclining to a Zero-Level Unemployment Benefit Profile: Good for Work Incentives? (2020)
Working Paper: Switching From An Inclining To A Zero-Level Unemployment Benefit Profile: Good For Work Incentives? (2020)
Working Paper: Switching from an Inclining to a Zero-Level Unemployment Benefit Profile: Good for Work Incentives? (2020)
Working Paper: Switching from an inclining to a zero-level unemployment benefit profile: Good for work incentives? (2020)
Working Paper: Switching from an inclining to a zero-level unemployment benefit profile: Good for work incentives? (2020)
Working Paper: Switching from an inclining to a zero-level unemployment benefit profile: Good for work incentives? (2020)
Working Paper: Switching from an inclining to a zero-level unemployment benefit profile: Good for work incentives? (2020)
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:eee:labeco:v:64:y:2020:i:c:s0927537120300221

DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2020.101816

Access Statistics for this article

Labour Economics is currently edited by A. Ichino

More articles in Labour Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().