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
Additional contact information
Leda Inga: University of Luxembourg

No 13002, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

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: policy evaluation; unemployment insurance; youth unemployment; difference-in-differences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J64 J65 J68 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23 pages
Date: 2020-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ias
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Published - published in: Labour Economics , 2020, 64, 101816

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp13002.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: 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:iza:izadps:dp13002

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().