The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics

Living Edition
| Editors: Palgrave Macmillan

Social Insurance

  • Stefania Albanesi
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5_2213-1
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Abstract

Individuals face uncertainty about their labour income, due to chronic and temporary medical conditions or to unemployment spells. The individual burden of these risks can be eased by social insurance. Income taxation and government transfer programmes, such as disability and unemployment insurance, are the most common forms of social insurance. The challenge in the design of social insurance programmes is the impossibility of fully distinguishing between low income by choice and low income by necessity. This article reviews leading theories of optimal social insurance under private information and points to possible directions of future research.

Keywords

Adverse selection Altruism Consumption inequality Consumption smoothing Continuation values Depreciation Disability insurance Euler equations Expected utility Human capital Immizeration Incentive compatibility Incentives Infinite horizons Lump-sum taxes Mirrlees, J. Moral hazard Observability Optimal taxation Principal and agent Private information Private insurance Progressive and regressive taxation Promised values Risk sharing Search models of unemployment Self-insurance Social insurance Taxation of capital income Taxation of income Training Unemployment insurance Welfare-to-work programmes 

JEL Classifications

D4 D10 
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Copyright information

© The Author(s) 2008

Authors and Affiliations

  • Stefania Albanesi
    • 1
  1. 1.