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Unemployment Insurance in Unionized Labor Markets: Neither Ghent nor Centralized

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  • David Saha
  • Ronnie Schöb

Abstract

This paper analyzes unemployment insurance (UI) schemes in the presence of mobile workers and trade unions at industry or regional level that are capable of internalizing the effect of wage demands on UI contribution rates. We compare two types of existing UI systems. When UI is organized at trade union level (decentralized Ghent UI), trade unions strategically lower the benefit levels of their UI schemes to deter welfare recipients from other unions from entering their UI scheme, leading to a race to the bottom in UI provision. With centralized provision of UI, by contrast, trade unions do not fully account for the cost of higher wages as mobility allows them to partially shift the burden of unemployment to other UIs. A system of coordinated UI, combining a centrally set benefit level with decentralized funding as in Ghent UI systems, can circumvent both the strategic benefit setting and the fiscal externality problems, thus reconciling the equity and efficiency aims in the design of unemployment insurance.

Suggested Citation

  • David Saha & Ronnie Schöb, 2015. "Unemployment Insurance in Unionized Labor Markets: Neither Ghent nor Centralized," CESifo Working Paper Series 5430, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_5430
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    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp5430.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    unemployment insurance; Ghent system; trade unions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J51 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Trade Unions: Objectives, Structure, and Effects
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • J65 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment Insurance; Severance Pay; Plant Closings
    • H70 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - General

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