IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/has/discpr/2336.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does cutting the value of unemployment insurance benefits affect take-up? Evidence from Hungary

Author

Listed:
  • Márton Csillag

    (HUN-REN Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, Budapest Institute for Policy Analysis)

  • Balázs Munkácsy

    (Budapest Institute for Policy Analysis)

  • Ágota Scharle

    (Budapest Institute for Policy Analysis)

Abstract

Does a drastic cut in in potential benefit duration affect the take-up of unemployment insurance benefits among those eligible? We evaluate a policy change reducing the maximum length of UI benefits from 9 to 3 months in Hungary at the end of 2011. We rely on rich longitudinal matched administrative data, which allows us to obtain information on a large sample of job losers, and precisely estimate eligibility for UI benefits. We find that slightly less than 60 percent of UI eligible individuals claim benefits, and that while the length of benefit entitlement is only slightly positively correlated with taking up benefits, UI claiming rate tends to increase with previous earnings. We show that the proportion of UI benefit claims fell only slightly (by 1.5 – 2 percentage points), but this effect was more pronounced for those with the largest potential losses in UI value. This moderate effect might be related to the fact that the reform essentially got rid of the period of flat-rate UI benefits, while keeping the period when UI benefits were proportional to previous earnings roughly unchanged. At the same time, UI take-up decreased among those with low earnings (around the minimum wage) but stable employment, a group with likely little savings, which is alarming from a social policy perspective.

Suggested Citation

  • Márton Csillag & Balázs Munkácsy & Ágota Scharle, 2023. "Does cutting the value of unemployment insurance benefits affect take-up? Evidence from Hungary," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 2336, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:has:discpr:2336
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://kti.krtk.hu/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/KRTKKTIWP202336.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anderson, Patricia M. & Meyer, Bruce D., 2000. "The effects of the unemployment insurance payroll tax on wages, employment, claims and denials," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(1-2), pages 81-106, October.
    2. John Micklewright & Gyula Nagy, 1994. "How does the Hungarian unemployment insurance system really work?," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 2(2), pages 209-232, June.
    3. Wonsik Ko & Robert A. Moffitt, 2022. "Take-up of Social Benefits," NBER Working Papers 30148, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Moffitt, Robert, 1983. "An Economic Model of Welfare Stigma," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(5), pages 1023-1035, December.
    5. Elira Kuka & Bryan A. Stuart, 2021. "Racial Inequality in Unemployment Insurance Receipt and Take-Up," NBER Working Papers 29595, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stéphane Auray & David L. Fuller, 2020. "Eligibility, experience rating, and unemployment insurance take‐up," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 11(3), pages 1059-1107, July.
    2. Mark Duggan & Audrey Guo & Andrew C. Johnston, 2022. "Would Broadening the UI Tax Base Help Low-Income Workers?," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 112, pages 107-111, May.
    3. David Coady & César Martinelli & Susan W. Parker, 2013. "Information and Participation in Social Programs," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 27(1), pages 149-170.
    4. Brizmohun, Roshini & Duffy, Patricia A., 2016. "Do Personal Attitudes about Welfare Influence Food Stamp Participation?," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235698, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    5. Komamura, Kohei & Yamada, Atsuhiro, 2004. "Who bears the burden of social insurance? Evidence from Japanese health and long-term care insurance data," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 565-581, December.
    6. David W. Emmons & Eva Madly & Stephen A. Woodbury, 2005. "Refundable Tax Credits for Health Insurance: The Sensitivity of Simulated Impacts to Assumed Behavior," Upjohn Working Papers 05-119, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    7. E. J. Bird, "undated". "Exploring the stigma of food stamps," Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers 1097-96, University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty.
    8. Kim, Jinyoung & Kim, Seonghoon & Koh, Kanghyock, 2022. "Labor market institutions and the incidence of payroll taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    9. Kurita, Kenichi & Hori, Nobuaki & Katafuchi, Yuya, 2019. "Model of endogenous welfare stigma: Statistical discrimination view," MPRA Paper 98299, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Matthias Collischon & Kamila Cygan-Rehm & Regina T. Riphahn, 2021. "Employment effects of payroll tax subsidies," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 1201-1219, October.
    11. Marianne Bitler & Hilary Hoynes & Elira Kuka, 2017. "Child Poverty, the Great Recession, and the Social Safety Net in the United States," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(2), pages 358-389, March.
    12. Huffman, Sonya Kostova & Jensen, Helen H., 2003. "Do Food Assistance Programs Improve Household Food Security?: Recent Evidence From The United States," 2003 Annual meeting, July 27-30, Montreal, Canada 22219, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    13. Christopher J. O'Leary & Dallas Oberlee & Gabrielle Pepin, 2020. "Nudges to Increase Completion of Welfare Applications: Experimental Evidence from Michigan," Upjohn Working Papers 20-336, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    14. Hetschko, Clemens & Schöb, Ronnie & Wolf, Tobias, 2020. "Income support, employment transitions and well-being," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    15. Momi Dahan & Udi Nisan, 2010. "The effect of benefits level on take-up rates: evidence from a natural experiment," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 17(2), pages 151-173, April.
    16. Florian Baumann & Nikolai Stähler, 2008. "Union Power as a Reason for Europe Not to Introduce Experience Rating?," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 164(3), pages 568-585, September.
    17. Franz, Wolfgang, 1994. "Central and East European labor markets in transition: Developments, causes, and cures," Discussion Papers 19, University of Konstanz, Center for International Labor Economics (CILE).
    18. Nynke de Groot & Pierre Koning, 2022. "A burden too big to bear? The effect of experience‐rated disability insurance premiums on firm bankruptcies and employment," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 124(1), pages 214-242, January.
    19. Kamhon Kan & Yen-Ling Lin, 2009. "The labor market effects of national health insurance: evidence from Taiwan," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 22(2), pages 311-350, April.
    20. Fieldhouse, Andrew & Howard, Sean & Koch, Christoffer & Munro, David, 2022. "A New Claims-Based Unemployment Dataset: Application to Postwar Recoveries Across U.S. States," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1066, Global Labor Organization (GLO).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Keywords: unemployment insurance benefits; potential benefit duration; take-up;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
    • J65 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment Insurance; Severance Pay; Plant Closings

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:has:discpr:2336. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Nora Horvath (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iehashu.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.