Unemployment benefits, risk aversion, and migration incentives

Axel Heitmueller

Journal of Population Economics, 2005, vol. 18, issue 1, 93-112

Abstract: With reference to the EU enlargement, a framework is derived which allows the study of the effect of unemployment benefits on the migration decision. While benefits simply increase the expected gain for risk neutral individuals, they work as an insurance device for risk averse migrants; the results for the two groups might differ. Thus, the migration decision is reformulated as monetary lottery. Unsurprisingly, the paper finds that risk averse individuals are less likely to engage in migration. Yet, introducing unemployment benefits also makes them select a different set of countries. The implications of selection and sorting, however, depend crucially on the link between risk aversion and economically important personal characteristics. It is also shown that unemployment benefits give rise to intertemporal trade-offs in migration returns. Copyright Springer-Verlag 2005

Keywords: J60; J61; J65; Migration; unemployment benefits; risk aversion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (48)

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Working Paper: Unemployment Benefits, Risk Aversion, and Migration Incentives (2002)
Working Paper: Unemployment Benefits, Risk Aversion, and Migration Incentives (2002)
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DOI: 10.1007/s00148-004-0192-3

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