PAYROLL TAXES, SOCIAL INSURANCE, AND BUSINESS CYCLES

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Burda, Michael C.; Weder, Mark
• 署名单位: Humboldt University of Berlin; University of Adelaide
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1542-4766
• DOI: 10.1111/jeea.12145
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 438-467
• 关键词: cyclical behavior; equilibrium unemployment; labor-market; search; EMPLOYMENT; fluctuations; models

摘要

Payroll taxes represent a major distortionary influence of governments on labor markets. This paper examines the role of time-varying payroll taxes and the social safety net for cyclical fluctuations in a nonmonetary economy with labor market frictions and unemployment insurance, when the latter is only imperfectly related to search effort. A balanced social insurance budget induces countercyclical payroll taxation, renders gross wages more rigid over the cycle and strengthens the model's endogenous propagation mechanism. For conventional calibrations, the model generates a negatively sloped Beveridge curve and countercyclical unemployment as well as substantial volatility and persistence of vacancies and unemployment.