报告人：赵敏强博士（王亚南经济研究院）

时 间：2011年10月31日 4：30pm-6：00pm

地 点：经济楼D110

摘要：

This paper examines how means-tested unemployment benefits affect the joint employment decisions of couples. First, a cross-country comparison is conducted to show a strong correlation between the dependency in computing unemployment benefits and the dependency of women’s employment (unemployment) rates conditional on their spouses’ employment statuses. Second, my difference-in-difference analysis based on the UK data provides additional empirical support to the impacts of the 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’ reservation-wage map. My 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 due to its limitation of partial equilibrium analysis. Lastly, I calibrate the model to match some important features of the UK economy. My quantitative exercise shows that means-tested unemployment benefits can generate a higher employment rate, a greater proportion of dual-earner couples as well as a lower government expenditure on unemployment benefits when the positive work incentives dominate the negative work incentives.