Abstract
The massive growth of unemployment in Europe since the 1970s has put strong pressure on the existing systems of unemployment insurance (hereafter, U.I.). Economists have emphasized that the wage cost increase as a consequence of the social contributions is one of the main causes of unemployment and that the system therefore is caught in a vicious circle: larger unemployment leading to larger social contributions leading to larger unemployment. The most prominent policy reports of influential international institutions (the OECD Jobs Study and the White Book of the European Commission) have argued for a decrease of the unemployment benefits and for better targeting towards the really needy. This would basically reflect a tendency towards more explicit solidarity and less social insurance. More philosophically inclined authors have also described the need for a new culture of solidarity (Rosanvallon, 1995, Van Parijs, 1996).
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Atkinson, A. (1989). Poverty and Social Security, Harvester Wheatsheaf, New York.
Atkinson, A. (1990). “Income Maintenance for the Unemployed in Britain and the Response to High Unemployment”, Ethics 100, 569–585.
Atkinson, A. (1997). “Bringing Income Distribution in from the Cold”, Economic Journal 107, 297–321.
Calcoen, F., L. Eeckhoudt, J. Outreville (1986). “Indemnisation du chômage et revenus de remplacement: une approche par la théorie de l’assurance”, Schweizerisches Zeitschrift für Volkswirtschaft und Statistik, 122, 323–337.
Di Tella, R., R. MacCulloch (1995). An Empirical Study of Unemployment Benefit Preferences, mimeo, Oxford University.
Eeckhoudt, L., Gollier, C. (1995). Risk: Evaluation, Management and Sharing, Harvester Wheatsheaf, Hertfordshire.
European Communities (1993) Growth, Competitiveness and Employment — the Challenges and Ways Forward into the 21th Century, Delors White Paper, Bulletin of the European Communities, Supplement 6/93.
OECD Jobs Study, (1994).
Rosanvallon, R (1995). La nouvelle question sociale, Editions du Seuil, Paris.
Van der Heijden, E., J. Nelissen, H. Verbon (1997). “Altruism and Fairness in a Public Pension System”, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 32, 505–518.
Van Parijs, P. (1996). Refonder la solidarité, Les éditions du Cerf, Paris.
Verhue, M. (1996). Demand for Unemployment Insurance — a Survey-Based Analysis, Universiteit Gent, Working Paper 97/23.
Wright, R. (1986). “The Redistributive Roles of Unemployment Insurance and the Dynamics of Voting”, Journal of Public Economics, 31, 377–399.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2002 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Schokkaert, E., Verhue, M., Omey, E. (2002). Unemployment Compensation Preferences: Insurance and Solidarity. In: D’Aspremont, C., Ginsburgh, V., Sneessens, H., Spinnewyn, F. (eds) Institutional and Financial Incentives for Social Insurance. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-0783-3_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-0783-3_4
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-5237-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-4615-0783-3
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive