We use a life cycle model of consumption and portfolio choice to study the effects of social security on the investment decisions of households for the European case. Our model is mainly based on the one developed by Cocco, Gomes, and Maenhout (2005). We extend it by unemployment risk using...

Unemployment benefits, benefit duration, base period and qualifying period are constituent parameters of the unemployment insurance system in most OECD countries. From economic research we know that the amount and duration of unemployment benefits increase unemployment. To analyze the effects of...

This paper empirically analyzes the distribution of unemployment durations in West- Germany before and after the changes during the mid 1980s in the maximum entitlement periods for unemployment benefits for elderly unemployed. The analysis is based on the comprehensive IAB employment subsample...

We compare information on the length of unemployment spells contained in the IAB employment subsample (IABS) and in the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP). Due to the lack of information on registered unemployment in the IABS, we use two proxies of unemployment in the IABS as introduced by...

m Jahr 1997 wurden die maximalen Anspruchsdauern auf Arbeitslosengeld für ältere Beschäftigte verkürzt. In der vorliegenden Arbeit werden die Auswirkungen dieser Reform auf Übergänge von Beschäftigung in Arbeitslosigkeit und Verweildauern in Arbeitslosigkeit der 54-56jährigen untersucht....

The aim of this paper is to study the optimal duration of unemployment benefit entitlement duration across the business cycle. We wonder if the entitlement duration should be prolonged in bad and shortened in good times. Because of consumption smoothing, such a countercyclical policy can be...

We derive the shape of optimal unemployment insurance (UI) contracts when agents can exert search effort but face different search costs and have private information about their type. We derive a recursive solution of our dynamic adverse selection problem with repeated moral hazard. Conditions...

We develop a tractable macroeconomic model with employment risk and labor market search in order evaluate the effects of labor market reform on unemployment, growth, and welfare. The model has a large number of risk-averse households who can invest in risk-free physical capital and risky human...

Job search models offer two complementary predictions about the effects of unemployment benefits on job search outcomes among unemployed workers. By raising workers' reservation wages, unemployment benefits should contribute to both prolonged spell duration and improved post-unemployment job...

Generous income support programs as provided by European welfare states have often been blamed to hamper employment. This paper investigates the importance of incentives inherent in the tax-benefit system for the individual decision to take up work. Using German microdata over the period...