Cross-country unemployment insurance, transfers, and trade-offs in international risk sharing

Zeno Enders and David Vespermann

VfS Annual Conference 2021 (Virtual Conference): Climate Economics from Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association

Abstract: We assess to which degree an international transfer mechanism can enhance consumption risk sharing as well as allocative efficiency and apply our results to a potential European unemployment benefit scheme (EUBS). Specifically, we first develop a simple model with nominal rigidities to build intuition by deriving analytical results. We then use a rich DSGE model, calibrated to the Core and the Periphery of the euro area, to quantitatively analyze the changing dynamics that a EUBS brings about. We find that a EUBS can provide risk sharing by stabilizing relative consumption as well as unemployment. Following supply shocks, however, the cross-country transfer embodied in the unemployment benefits is spent to a large degree on relatively inefficiently produced goods in the receiving countries. This renders the allocation even more inefficient by opening country-specific labor wedges further, also after government-spending shocks. Yet, since this trade-off between allocative efficiency and consumption risk sharing does not exist after certain demand shocks, the welfare effects of a EUBS depend on the cause for international unemployment differentials. A EUBS that is only active after specific shocks would therefore maximize overall welfare. Even without this feature, a EUBS would raise welfare in the Core, leaving the Periphery's welfare almost unchanged.

Keywords: Cross-country transfers; international unemployment insurance; EMUEuropean business cycles; Optimum Currency Area; Structural reforms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E32 F44 F45 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dge, nep-ias, nep-mac and nep-opm
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https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/242430/1/vfs-2021-pid-50334.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Cross-country unemployment insurance, transfers, and trade-offs in international risk sharing (2024)
Working Paper: Cross-Country Unemployment Insurance, Transfers, and Trade-Offs in International Risk Sharing (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:vfsc21:242430

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