This paper characterizes the optimal policy within a dynamic search model of the labor market with risk-averse workers. In a fi…rst-best allocation of resources, unemployment benefi…ts should provide perfect insurance against the unemployment risk, layoff taxes are necessary to induce...

Workers are exposed to the risk of permanent disability. We rely on a dynamic mechanism design approach to determine how imperfect information on health should optimally be used to improve the trade-off between inducing the able to work and providing insurance against disability. After deriving...

This paper investigates the provision of insurance to workers against search-induced wage uctuations. I rely on numerical simulations of a model of on-the-job search and precautionary savings. The model is calibrated to low skilled workers in the U.S.. The extent of insurance is determined by...

This paper emphasizes the two-way causality between the provision of unemployment insurance and the cultural transmission of work ethic. Values affect the size of the moral-hazard problem and, hence, the policy to be implemented. Conversely, when parents rationally choose how much effort to...