Reforming the Benefit System to 'Make Work Pay': Options and Priorities in a Weak Labour Market

Herwig Immervoll

No 50, IZA Policy Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Policies that support the unemployed, while reducing employment barriers and benefit dependency, are of particular interest in the current economic climate. This paper examines alternative policy approaches for combining adequate income support for the jobless with incentives to keep out-of-work spells short. After summarising the main parameters of existing income support measures for the unemployed in EU and OECD countries, I review evidence on the economic relevance of work incentives and discuss their significance when labour markets are weak during and after an economic downturn. Based on the available evidence, I propose a set of policy priorities to strengthen both the "protection" and the "promotion" functions of unemployment support.

Keywords: unemployment benefits; income support; work incentives; activation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H31 H53 J08 J68 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2012-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/pp50.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:izapps:pp50

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 Policy 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 ().