Unemployment insurance is a key tool for risk sharing and redistribution and also a prominent automatic stabiliser. It is a volatile spending item by design, which can lead to vulnerabilities. This paper explores various shocks and sources of vulnerability of the unemployment insurance schemes...

Prof. Martin Werding, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, hat in Kooperation mit dem ifo Institut, München, und im Auftrag des Bundesministeriums der Finanzen in der vorliegenden Studie aktualisierte Berechnungen zur Tragfähigkeit der öffentlichen Finanzen erstellt. Dabei wird mit annahmegestützten...

We develop a new modelling approach combining micro and macro simulations to analyse distributional and stabilizing effects of a European Unemployment Benefit System (EUBS). We run counterfactual simulations based on micro data for the period 1995 to 2013 to estimate net contributions for...

The recent economic crisis has provided a stress test for the vulnerability of social institutions. This paper assesses the vulnerability of social institutions in light of the current crisis, and surveys past episodes, when social institutions faced similar challenges. Public pay-as-you-go...

Eligibility criteria for unemployment benefits, which require recipients to actively look for work, take up suitable job offers or take part in active labour market programmes (ALMPs), or risk benefit sanctions, can play an important role in offsetting the negative impact of generous...

South Africa has an incomplete social protection system without a mandatory pension savings scheme. Designing a universal insurance pension system would allow to reduce the important government funded pension grant system and ensure that the old-age population has decent income. Only 40% of...

The discussion about a fiscal stabilisation capacity as a way of providing more fiscal integration in the euro area has strengthened in the aftermath of the European sovereign debt crisis. Among the instruments that can be used for temporary macroeconomic stabilisation in the presence of both...

This note focuses on the design of fair and work-oriented unemployment benefits, with a specific focus on Belgium, a country in which the design of the unemployment benefits system has become the subject of an intense policy debate in recent years. After taking stock of the most recent...