We study the political economy of labour market policies. First, it is shown that tax and redistributive considerations lead inside workers to prefer spending on active labour market programmes to passive spending, e.g., on unemployment benefits. We also show that greater active spending may be...

We study the political economy of labour market policies. First, it is shown that tax and redistributive considerations lead inside workers to prefer spending on active labour market programmes to passive spending, e.g., on unemployment benefits. We also show that greater active spending may be...

The paper develops a simple political-economy model of unemployment benefit determination in a small open economy characterized by bargaining between firms and unions. The authors derive a number of comparative static results and present empirical results for a panel of OECD countries that are...