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Pareto-Improving Unemployment Policies

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  • Jörg Lingens
  • Klaus Wälde

Abstract

CWe investigate how continental European unemployment can be reduced without reducing unemployment benefits and without reducing the net income of lowwage earners. Lower unemployment replacement rates reduce unemployment, the net wage and unemployment benefits. A lower tax on labour increases net wages and unemployment benefits. Combining these two policies allows to reduce unemployment without reducing net income of workers or of the unemployed. Such a policy becomes self-financing under realistic parameter constellations when taxes are reduced only for low-income workers.

Suggested Citation

  • Jörg Lingens & Klaus Wälde, 2007. "Pareto-Improving Unemployment Policies," Working Papers 2007_34, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    • Handle: RePEc:gla:glaewp:2007_34
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    Cited by:

    1. Daniel Cardona & Fernando Sánchez-Losada, 2004. "The Unemployment Benefit System: a Redistributive or an Insurance Institution?," DEA Working Papers 8, Universitat de les Illes Balears, Departament d'Economía Aplicada.
    2. Jörg Lingens & Klaus Wälde, 2009. "Pareto-Improving Unemployment Policies," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 65(2), pages 220-245, June.
    3. Erkki Koskela & Panu Poutvaara, 2008. "Outsourcing and Labor Taxation in Dual Labor Markets," CESifo Working Paper Series 2333, CESifo.
    4. Laszlo Goerke & Markus Pannenberg & Heinrich Ursprung, 2010. "A positive theory of the earnings relationship of unemployment benefits," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 145(1), pages 137-163, October.
    5. Niklas Potrafke, 2010. "Labor market deregulation and globalization: empirical evidence from OECD countries," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 146(3), pages 545-571, September.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Inequality; Unemployment; Taxation; Policy reform;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J38 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Public Policy
    • J51 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Trade Unions: Objectives, Structure, and Effects
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • E60 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General

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