The Impact of Means-Tested Unemployment Benefits on the Joint Employment Decisions of Couples
发布日期：2012-06-28主 题：The Impact of Means-Tested Unemployment Benefits on the Joint Employment Decisions of Couples
主讲人：Kent Zhao，厦门大学王亚南经济研究院助理教授。Kent Zhao于2010年获得俄亥俄州立大学经济学博士学位，曾供职于亚利桑那州立大学环境经济和可持续发展政策中心博士后研究助理，其研究方向包括环境经济学和劳动经济学，其成果发表在包括Journal of Development Economics等学术刊物上。
时 间：2012年7月3日星期二16:00-17:30
地 点：学术会堂608
主办单位：人力资本与劳动经济研究中心
摘 要：This paper examines how means-tested unemployment benefits affect joint employment decisions of couples. First, a cross-country comparison is conducted to illustrate a strong correlation between the dependency of computing unemployment benefits and the dependency of women’s employment rates conditional on their spouses’ employment statuses. Second, a case study using the UK data is conducted to provide additional empirical support for the impacts of means-tested unemployment benefits. Third, I incorporate the feature of means-tested unemployment benefits into a joint search model and examine how means-tested unemployment benefits affect couples’ employment decisions. This paper shows that the impacts of means-tested unemployment benefits involve both negative and positive work incentives, the latter of which has been largely ignored in the micro labor literature. Lastly, I calibrate the model to match some important features of the UK economy. My quantitative exercise suggests that means-tested unemployment benefits can generate a greater proportion of dual-earner couples as well as a lower government expenditure on unemployment benefits in comparison with non-means-tested unemployment benefits.
[编辑]：孙颖
