Designing Disability Insurance Reforms: Tightening Eligibility Rules or Reducing Benefits?

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Haller, Andreas; Staubli, Stefan; Zweimueller, Josef
• 署名单位: Norwegian School of Economics (NHH); University of Calgary; National Bureau of Economic Research; University of Zurich; IZA Institute Labor Economics
• 刊物名称: ECONOMETRICA
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0012-9682
• DOI: 10.3982/ECTA19021
• 发表日期: 2024
• 页码: 79-110
• 关键词: financial incentives; LABOR; consumption; earnings; recipients; receipt; HEALTH; income

摘要

This paper develops a sufficient statistics framework for analyzing the welfare effects of disability insurance (DI). We derive social-optimality conditions for the two main DI policy parameters: (i) eligibility rules and (ii) benefit levels. Applying this framework to two restrictive DI reforms in Austria, we find that tighter DI eligibility rules triggered higher fiscal cost savings and lower insurance losses. Hence, tighter DI eligibility rules dominate DI benefit reductions in scaling back the Austrian DI system.