UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE AND CULTURAL TRANSMISSION: THEORY AND APPLICATION TO EUROPEAN UNEMPLOYMENT

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Michau, Jean-Baptiste
• 署名单位: Institut Polytechnique de Paris; Ecole Polytechnique
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1542-4766
• DOI: 10.1111/jeea.12065
• 发表日期: 2013
• 页码: 1320-1347
• 关键词: work norms; institutions; COOPERATION; TECHNOLOGY; EVOLUTION; mobility; shocks; trust; state

摘要

This paper emphasizes the two-way causality between the provision of unemployment insurance and the cultural transmission of civicness. The returns to being uncivic are increasing in the generosity of unemployment insurance; but this generosity is decreasing in the number of uncivic individuals. In this context, I determine the evolution of preferences across generations and show that cultural heterogeneity is sustained over the long-run. The dynamics of cultural transmission can generate a long lag between the introduction of unemployment insurance and an increase in people's willingness to live off government-provided benefits. Hence, it offers an explanation to the 'European unemployment puzzle' due to the coexistence of generous unemployment insurance and low unemployment in the 1950s and 1960s.