Unintended consequences of unemployment insurance benefits: the role of banks

Yavuz Arslan, Ahmet Degerli and Gazi Kabaş

No 795, BIS Working Papers from Bank for International Settlements

Abstract: Many countries provide unemployment insurance (UI) to reduce individuals' income risk and to moderate fluctuations in the economy. However, to the extent that these policies are successful, they would be expected to reduce precautionary savings and hence bank deposits--households' main saving instrument. In this paper, we study this reduced incentive to save and uncover a novel distortionary mechanism through which UI policies affect the economy. In particular, we show that, when UI benefits become more generous, bank deposits fall. Since deposits are the main stable funding source for banks, this fall in deposits squeezes bank commercial lending, which in turn reduces corporate investment.

Keywords: unemployment insurance; precautionary savings; bank deposits (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D14 G21 J65 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 65 pages
Date: 2019-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ban, nep-ias and nep-lab
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Related works:
Working Paper: Unintended consequences of unemployment insurance benefits: The role of banks (2024)
Working Paper: Unintended Consequences of Unemployment Insurance Benefits: The Role of Banks (2021)
Working Paper: Unintended Consequences of Unemployment Insurance Benefits: The Role of Banks (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bis:biswps:795

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