The political economy of unemployment insurance based on individual savings account: lessons from Chile
Kirsten Sehnbruch,
Rafael Carranza and
José Joaquín Prieto
LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library
Abstract:
In recent years, unemployment protection systems based on individual savings have been instituted in several developing countries. Chile was one of the first to establish such a system, which at the time was widely cited as a model for other countries. This article discusses the particular political context in which the Chilean system was created before examining how it works in terms of coverage and levels of benefits received by unemployed workers. The authors undertake a detailed analysis of the administrative data produced by the system and conclude that the insurance covers only a small proportion of the unemployed, as most workers generally had precarious jobs that did not allow them to contribute to the system consistently. The Chilean case illustrates how difficult it is to establish functioning unemployment insurance in developing countries with precarious labour markets. Based on the interaction between employment characteristics and the conditions imposed by the benefit system, the article assesses the efficacy of the Unemployment Insurance Savings Accounts (UISA) system and analyses whether it can indeed serve as a model for other developing countries.
JEL-codes: E24 I3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-10-18
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)
Published in Development and Change, 18, October, 2018, pp. 1-28. ISSN: 0012-155X
Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/90663/ Open access version. (application/pdf)
Related works:
Journal Article: The Political Economy of Unemployment Insurance based on Individual Savings Accounts: Lessons from Chile (2019) 
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:ehl:lserod:90663
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager ().