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Workfare in an efficiency wage model

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  • Volker Meier

Abstract

The impacts of introducing work requirements for welfare recipients are studied in an efficiency wage model. If the workfare package is not mandatory, it will reduce employment, profits, and utility levels of employed and unemployed workers. In contrast, mandatory effort requirements will generally raise both employment and profits and reduce the tax rate. The impact on the net wage is ambiguous. Changes of utility levels of employed and unemployed workers have the same sign as the variation in the net wage. The possibility of a Pareto improvement may explain the widespread support for welfare to work experiments.
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  • Volker Meier, 2008. "Workfare in an efficiency wage model," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 35(2), pages 165-178, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:empiri:v:35:y:2008:i:2:p:165-178
    DOI: 10.1007/s10663-007-9055-y
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    Cited by:

    1. Holzner, Christian & Meier, Volker & Werding, Martin, 2010. "Workfare, monitoring, and efficiency wages," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 157-168, March.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Workfare; Welfare; Efficiency wages; H53; J41; J60;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • H53 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs
    • I30 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General
    • J41 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Labor Contracts
    • J60 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - General

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