The welfare effects of extending unemployment benefits: Evidence from re-employment and unemployment transfers
中文摘要
本文通过比较就业时对收入转移支付的搜寻努力反应（即再就业奖金）与失业时的反应（即延长保险金），考察延长失业保险金的福利效应。具体而言，我们使用2001年至2011年台湾全部失业期的行政数据，评估提供再就业奖金与延长失业保险金的效果。我们的结果表明，提供再就业奖金提高了求职风险率，并产生了正的财政外部性。用于奖金初始支出的每新台币的行为成本为-0.61。相比之下，延长失业保险金降低了失业退出率，并产生了负的财政外部性。我们将估计得到的政策效应与一个带流动性约束的搜寻模型相结合，以识别延长失业保险金的福利价值，该价值由失业时与就业时消费之间的边际替代率（MRS）来刻画。我们发现，延长失业保险金的估计MRS约为1.5至2.5——失业时转移支付的边际价值约为就业时的两倍。最后，延长失业保险金公共资金的边际价值介于1.3至2之间，表明延长失业保险金带来的福利收益超过其福利成本30%以上。
Abstract
This paper investigates the welfare effects of extending unemployment benefits by comparing the search effort responses to income transfers when employed (i.e. re-employment bonus) and unemployed (i.e. extended benefits). Specifically, we use administrative data on the universe of unemployment spells in Taiwan from 2001 to 2011 and evaluate effects of providing a re-employment bonus and extending unemployment benefits. Our results suggest that the provision of re-employment bonus increases job-finding hazards and results in the positive fiscal externality. The behavioral costs per New Taiwanese Dollar (NTD) of initial spending on bonuses is - 0.61 . In contrast, extending unemployment benefits reduces the rate of unemployment exit and generates the negative fiscal externality. We integrate the estimated policy effects with a search model with liquidity constraints to identify the value of extending unemployment benefits captured by the marginal rate of substitution (MRS) between consumption when unemployed and employed. We find that the estimated MRS of extending benefits is around 1.5 to 2.5 — the marginal value of transfers when unemployed is about two times larger than that when employed. Finally, the marginal value of public fund for extending UI benefits is between 1.3 and 2, suggesting the welfare gain from benefit extension is larger than its welfare cost by more than 30%.