Unemployment insurance,recalls, and experience rating

In the United States, almost half of the workers who separated from their jobs ended their unemployment spell by returning to work for their last employer. In this study, we explore the impact of the experience rating (ER) system on recalls. In states using reserve ratio ER, and for a firm that is not at the minimum or the maximum tax rate, each layoff of a worker receiving unemployment benefits increases the future tax rate while each recall reduces it. This provides a natural incentive for firms to recall former workers receiving unemployment benefits. We use the Quarterly Workforce Indicators dataset, which provides information on recalls at the county level, and exploit the differences in tax schedule across states to estimate the impact of ER on recalls. We show that the recall share from hires increases with the degree of ER. We then develop a search and matching model with different unemployment insurance (UI) status, endogenous UI take-up, endogenous separations, recalls, and new hires. We illustrate that this model reproduces the effects of ER on recalls admirably. We show that an increase in the intensity of ER translates into a higher recall share at the steady state, especially for unemployed workers collecting unemployment benefits. We then use this model to analyze the labor market dynamics under alternative financing schemes. We show that ER has stabilization virtues—the higher the degree of ER, the less volatile the unemployment rate.     

Wage bargaining, labor-tax progression, and welfare

This paper analyzes the effect of labor-tax progression on employment and welfare in an economy with a unionized labor market. The government influences wage bargaining through its tax policies. Wages can be reduced by increasing the marginal labor-tax rate. If there are no restrictions on profit taxation, a first-best optimum with full employment is realized; this first-best optimum can always be implemented by a progressive tax schedule. If profit taxation is restricted, unemployment may arise. For this case, we show that the welfare-maximizing degree of tax progression is influenced by a variety of factors, in particular the wage elasticity of labor demand, the distribution of bargaining power, and the existence of unemployment benefits. Examples are given for both progressive and regressive tax structures. Comparative-static analysis reveals that a decline in union bargaining power, an increase in unemployment benefits, and an increase in the overall work force reduce the efficient degree of tax progression.     

Job creators,job creation,and the tax code

This paper considers the role of the tax code in determining income dispersion and vacancy creation. A “span‐of‐control” model is embedded into a search and matching environment. A cut to the tax on profits in isolation improves job creation and reduces before‐tax income inequality. The impact of a budget‐balancing increase in the wage tax depends on the bargaining power of firms. When it is high, firms pick up the lion's share of the tax burden. The tax acts like a barrier to entry: it benefits large firms at the expense of marginal ones. Net effects are an increase in unemployment and before‐tax income dispersion. Low firm bargaining power means workers pick up more of the tax burden. It acts like a subsidy to entrepreneurship reinforcing the impact of the profit tax reduction. Taxes on the returns to capital leave everyone worse off.     

Minimum wages and youth unemployment

This paper constructs a labor search model to explore the effects of minimum wages on youth unemployment. To capture the gradual decline in unemployment for young workers as they age, the standard search model is extended so that workers gain experience when employed. Experienced workers have higher average productivity and lower job finding and separation rates that match wage and worker flow data. In this environment, minimum wages can have large effects on unemployment because they interact with a worker's ability to gain job experience. The increase in minimum wages between 2007 and 2009 can account for a 0.8 percentage point increase in the steady state unemployment rate and a 2.8 percentage point increase in unemployment for 15–24 year old workers in the model parameterized to simulate outcomes of high school educated workers. Minimum wages can also help explain the high rates of youth unemployment in France compared to the United States.     

Government expenditure,external and domestic public debt,and economic growth

This paper analyzes the relationship between government expenditure, tax on returns to assets, public debt, and growth in an endogenous growth model. Public debt is composed of two components, domestic debt and external debt. We show conditions for existence, uniqueness, and multiplicity of the steady states. More precisely, existence of steady state requires a sufficiently high productivity and a sufficiently low tax on returns to assets. We also provide the effects of an increase in the tax rate on returns to assets on the steady state. In particular, the relation between public spending and the tax rate has a bell shape. Domestic debt unambiguously increases with tax whereas external debt displays an inverted U‐shaped curve. A high tax rate leads to a reallocation of public debt in favor of domestic debt (to the detriment of external debt). The effect of taxation on consumption (and production) also displays a nonlinear pattern when the output elasticity of capital is lower than unity (the effect is monotonously increasing if this elasticity is unity). We also derive the conditions under which a tax increase can boost or reduce the balanced growth rate.     

BALANCED BUDGETS: ECONOMIC NIRVANA OR FISCAL CHAOS?

This paper investigates the effect of a pay-as-you-go, balanced budget policy on macroeconomic performance. It uses a simple model of the aggregate demand for money and goods, with temporary monetary equilibrium and quantity adjustments on goods markets. Within this framework, if the monetary/real interaction is strong enough, a balanced budget with sufficiently high tax rates (≡ sufficiently high government expenditures) is consistent with typical bounded fluctuations around a relatively high income, low unemployment equilibrium. Lower tax rates (≡ lower government expenditures) can trigger a sharp decline in revenues, expenditures, employment, and output.     

Government intervention,sectoral productivity growth and structural transformation

This article examines the long-term impact of government intervention and sectoral productivity on structural transformation. We construct a multi-sector Dynamic General Equilibrium model that explicitly incorporates government intervention as a force of structural transformation. The government affects the economy through taxation and lump sum transfers. We show that in the steady state, a reduction in the tax rate and an increase in sectoral productivity will decrease the agricultural employment share, and when nonhomotheticity of preference is strong enough, these changes can also increase the share of services employment.     

Environmental Quality,Public Debt and Economic Development

This article analyzes the consequences on capital accumulation and environmental quality of environmental policies financed by public debt. A public sector of pollution abatement is financed by a tax or by public debt. We show that if the initial capital stock is high enough, the economy monotonically converges to a long-run steady state. On the contrary, when the initial capital stock is low, the economy is relegated to an environmental poverty trap. We also explore the implications of public policies on the trap and on the long-run stable steady state. In particular, we find that government should decrease debt and increase pollution abatement to promote capital accumulation and environmental quality at the stable long-run steady state. Finally, a welfare analysis shows that there exists a level of public debt that allows a long run steady state to be optimal.     

Europe vs America: Institutional hysteresis in a simple normative model

We show how the differences in US and European institutions can arise in a normative model. The paper focuses on the labor market and the government's decision to set unemployment benefits in response to an unemployment shock. The government balances insurance considerations with the tax burden of benefits and the possibility that they introduce adverse “incentive effects” whereby benefits increase unemployment. It is found that when an adverse shock occurs, benefits should be increased most when the adverse incentive effects of benefits are largest. Adjustment costs of changing benefits introduce hysteresis and can help explain why post-oil shock benefits remained high in Europe but not in the US. Desirable features of the model are that we obtain an asymmetry out of a symmetric environment and that the mechanism yielding hysteresis is both simple (requires the third derivative of the utility function to be non-negative) and self-correcting. Empirical evidence concerning the role of corporatism is discussed.     

Labor Taxation in Search Equilibrium with Home Production

Conventional models of equilibrium unemployment typically imply that proportional taxes on labor earnings are neutral with respect to unemployment as long as the tax does not affect the replacement rate provided by unemployment insurance, i.e. unemployment benefits relative to after–tax earnings. When home production is an option, the conventional results may no longer hold. This paper uses a search equilibrium model with home production to examine the employment and welfare implications of labor taxes. The employment effect of a rise in a proportional tax is found to be negative for sufficiently low replacement rates, whereas it is ambiguous for moderate and high replacement rates. Numerical calibrations of the model indicate that employment generally falls when labor taxes are raised.     

Self-fulfilling expectations,history, and big push: A search equilibrium model of unemployment

We set up a search equilibrium model with general matching technologies to study the phenomenon of large-scale and persistent unemployment. Our emphasis is on dynamics. We find, in addition to self-fulfilling expectations, history or initial level of employment plays a nonnegligible role for selecting the equilibrium converging to the steady state with large unemployment. We also discuss some policy implications. We propose a method similar to the idea of big push in economic development for the economy trapped in the state of large unemployment to escape from it.     

Labour market programmes and the equity-efficiency trade-off

This paper studies optimal labour market policy in a society where differently gifted individuals can invest in training to further increase their labour market productivity and where the government seeks both efficiency and equity. Frictions in the matching process create unemployment and differently skilled workers face different levels of risk of unemployment. We show that in such an environment, training programmes that are targeted at the disadvantaged workers complement passive transfers (UI benefits), unlike general training subsidies. Combining passive subsidies with a training subsidy conditioned on the individual being unemployed (for a period) – the typical Active Labour Market Programme – creates a favourable trade-off between equity and efficiency and this encourages high spending on training.     

Public investment,taxation, and long-run output in economies with multi-level governments

This paper examines the dynamic effects of taxation and investment on the steady state output level of an economy. A simple neoclassical growth model with different tiers of government is developed. The initial focus is on governments that aim to maximise their citizens' welfare and economic performance by providing consumption goods for private consumption and public capital for private production. It is shown that a long-run per capita output maximising tax rate can be derived and that there also exists an optimal degree of fiscal decentralisation. The analysis then extends to the case where governments attempt instead to maximise their own tax revenue to fund expenditures which do not contribute to the utility of their citizens. Three different cases of taxation arrangement are considered: tax competition, tax sharing, and tax coordination. The modeling shows that intensifying tax competition will lead to an increase in the aggregate tax rate as compared to the cases of sharing and coordination amongst governments. These tax rates are both higher than the long-run per capita output maximising rate that was implied under the welfare maximising government scenario.     

Optimum income taxation and layoff taxes

This paper analyzes optimum income taxation in a model with endogenous job destruction that gives rise to unemployment. It is shown that optimal tax schemes comprise both payroll and layoff taxes when the state provides public unemployment insurance and aims at redistributing income. The optimal layoff tax is equal to the social cost of job destruction, which amounts to the sum of unemployment benefits (that the state pays to unemployed workers) and payroll taxes (that the state does not get when workers are unemployed).     

Welfare states and unemployment

Summary This paper studies equilibrium unemployment in a search model where the government both provides liberal unemployment insurance and taxes labor at high progressive tax rates. It is shown how progressive income taxation can counteract a high unemployment rate under generous unemployment insurance. In particular, high marginal taxes reduce workers' incentives to switch jobs in response to changing economic opportunities. This lower labor mobility reduces unemployment but at the cost of a less efficient labor allocation.We are grateful to William Dupor, Krishna Kumar, and Ashok Rai for excellent computer programming.     

Do Conditional Benefits Reduce Equilibrium Unemployment?

Although unconditional unemployment benefits destroy jobs in competitive and noncompetitive labor markets, conditional benefits can spur job growth in noncompetitive labor markets. Unconditional benefits reduce the penalty of shirking and misconduct, while conditional benefits increase this penalty. This is shown for the efficiency‐wage, no‐shirking model of the labor market developed by Shapiro and Stiglitz (1984) . Switching from unconditional to conditional benefits lowers unemployment. Tough eligibility requirements are thus important components of the welfare state. However, if conditional benefits are financed by a payroll tax, conditional benefits exert upward wage pressure so that unemployment falls by less and may even increase.     

Optimal welfare and in-work benefits with search unemployment and observable abilities

This paper explores the optimal interaction between the tax system and social assistance in insuring people against the risks of involuntary unemployment and low ability. To that end, we introduce search unemployment in a model of optimal non-linear income taxation. The relationship between welfare benefits and the optimal level of in-work benefits is U-shaped. This explains why in-work benefits are called for both in countries that grant low welfare benefits and countries that provide high welfare benefits. An earned-income tax credit optimally induces all agents to look for work if job search is cheap and effective, agents are not very risk averse, and the least-skilled agents are relatively productive.     

No Credit for Transition: European Institutions and German Unemployment

The Stability and Growth Pact, adopted by members of the European Union,imposes tight limits on government deficits. But since the collapse of Communism,Europe has been faced with the problems of economies in transition: and reunifiedGermany—the leading economy of the EU—combines a prosperous western stateand an eastern economy in the process of transition. In a model where unions play akey role in wage bargaining and transition imposes a substantial burden on thenational budget, we analyze the implications of balancing the budget for the path ofunemployment. Where high but temporary costs are financed by raising taxes onemployment to satisfy the Stability and Growth Pact, then the title is a misnomer:relative to a policy of `tax smoothing', the pact increases unemployment and slowsgrowth. In designing fiscal rules for Europe, the benefits of tax smoothing must beweighed in the balance along with the virtues of fiscal discipline.     

Unemployment, credit rationing, and capital accumulation: a tale of two frictions

Summary. This paper develops a model in which two information frictions are embedded into an otherwise conventional neoclassical growth model; an adverse selection problem in the labor market and a costly state verification problem in the credit market. The former allows equilibrium unemployment to arise endogenously while the latter is responsible for equilibrium credit rationing. This structure is used to investigate a theoretical link between the level of unemployment and the extent of credit rationing (and capital formation). The presence of the labor market friction is enough to generate scope for multiple steady state equilibria. The model also generates a large class of endogenous cyclical and chaotic dynamical equilibria. Development trap phenomena may also appear. Received: April 10, 1998; revised version: May 20, 1998     

Under-reporting of Income and Labor Market Performance

To examine the effects on labor market performance of government tax and enforcement policies, this paper develops an equilibrium model featuring tax evasion, matching frictions, and worker–firm wage bargains. In the wage bargains, workers and firms can agree on the amount of remuneration that should not be reported to the tax authorities. We find that increased taxation actually reduces unemployment, whereas more zealous enforcement has the opposite effect.