A Macroeconomic Approach to Optimal Unemployment Insurance: Applications

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Landais, Camille; Michaillat, Pascal; Saez, Emmanuel
• 署名单位: University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; Brown University; University of California System; University of California Berkeley
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-ECONOMIC POLICY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7731
• DOI: 10.1257/pol.20160462
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 182-216
• 关键词: benefits; search; EFFICIENCY; duration; BEHAVIOR; models; spells

摘要

In the United States, unemployment insurance (UI) is more generous when unemployment is high. This paper examines whether this policy is desirable. The optimal UI replacement rate is the Baily-Chetty replacement rate plus a correction term measuring the effect of UI on welfare through labor market tightness. Empirical evidence suggests that tightness is inefficiently low in slumps and inefficiently high in booms, and that an increase in UI raises tightness. Hence, the correction term is positive in slumps but negative in booms, and optimal UI is indeed countercyclical. Since there remains some uncertainty about the empirical evidence, the paper provides a thorough sensitivity analysis.