Insurance policies

  • How to minimize lock-in effects of programs for unemployed workers

    Appropriate timing and targeting of activation programs for the unemployed can help improve their cost-effectiveness

    Conny Wunsch, September 2016
    Activation programs, such as job search assistance, training, or work experience programs for unemployed workers, typically initially produce negative employment effects. These so-called “lock-in effects” occur because participants spend less time and effort on job search activities than non-participants. Lock-in effects need to be offset by sufficiently large post-participation employment or earnings for the programs to be cost-effective. They represent key indirect costs that are often more important than direct program costs. The right timing and targeting of these programs can improve their cost-effectiveness by reducing lock-in effects.
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  • Unemployment benefits and job match quality

    Do unemployment benefits help those seeking work to obtain better jobs?

    Unemployment insurance schemes face a well-known trade-off between providing income support to those out of work and reducing their incentive to look for work. This trade-off between benefits and incentives is central to the public debate about extending benefit periods during the recent economic crisis. Often overlooked in this debate is that such support can increase the quality of the work found by the unemployed. This quality rise, in terms of both wages and duration, can be achieved by increasing the time and resources available to an individual to obtain a better job.
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  • What can be expected from productive inclusion programs?

    Grants and training programs are great complements to social assistance to help people out of poverty

    Jamele Rigolini, October 2016
    Productive inclusion programs provide an integrated package of services, such as grants and training, to promote self-employment and wage employment among the poor. They show promising long-term impacts, and are often proposed as a way to graduate the poor out of social assistance. Nevertheless, neither productive inclusion nor social assistance will be able to solve the broader poverty challenge independently. Rather, the future is in integrating productive inclusion into the existing social assistance system, though this poses several design, coordination, and implementation challenges.
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  • How should job displacement wage losses be insured? Updated

    Wage losses upon re-employment can seriously harm long-tenured displaced workers if they are not properly insured

    Donald O. Parsons, July 2023
    Job displacement represents a serious earnings risk to long-tenured workers through lower re-employment wages, and these losses may persist for many years. Moreover, this risk is often poorly insured, although not for a lack of policy interest. To reduce this risk, most countries mandate scheduled wage insurance (severance pay), although it is provided only voluntarily in others, including the US. Actual-loss wage insurance is uncommon, although perceived difficulties may be overplayed. Both approaches offer the hope of greater consumption smoothing, with actual-loss plans carrying greater promise, but more uncertainty, of success.
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  • Compensating displaced workers Updated

    Job displacement is a serious earnings risk and the displaced are typically poorly insured

    Donald O. Parsons, February 2024
    Job displacement is a serious earnings risk to long-tenured workers, both through spells of unemployment and through reduced wages on subsequent jobs. Less developed countries often rely exclusively on government mandated employer-provided severance pay to protect displaced workers. Higher income countries usually rely on public unemployment insurance and mandated severance pay. Beyond these options, more administratively demanding plans have been proposed, including UI savings accounts and “actual loss” wage insurance, though real-world experience on either model is lacking.
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  • Unemployment benefits and unemployment Updated

    The challenge of unemployment benefits is to protect workers while minimizing undesirable side effects

    All developed economies have unemployment benefit programs to protect workers against major income losses during spells of unemployment. By enabling unemployed workers to meet basic consumption needs, the programs protect workers from having to sell their assets or accept jobs below their qualifications. The programs also help stabilize the economy during recessions. If benefits are too generous, however, the programs can lengthen unemployment and raise the unemployment rate. The policy challenge is to protect workers while minimizing undesirable side effects.
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