This paper presents the results of an experimental study on unemployment benefit sanctions. The experimental set-up allows us to distinguish between the effect of benefit sanctions once they are imposed (the ex post effect) and the effect that unemployed want to avoid getting a benefit sanction...

This paper develops a model of search on the labour market with training. The model reveals how the tax system can restore the social optimum if the Hosios condition is not satisfied in the private equilibrium. Furthermore, the effects are explored of a second-best reform from average to...

We model how unemployment benefit sanctions - benefit reductions that are imposed if unemployed do not comply with job search guidelines - affect unemployment. In our analysis we find that not only micro effects concerning the behavior of individual unemployed workers are relevant, but also...

This paper analyzes the design of optimal unemployment insurance in a search equilibrium framework where search effort among the unemployed is not perfectly observable. We examine to what extent the optimal policy involves monitoring of search effort and benefit sanctions if observed search is...