Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
不完全保险与劳动力市场改革的开放经济溢出效应
Incomplete insurance and open-economy spillovers of labor market reforms
摘要
This paper studies how an unemployment-benefit reform in one member state of a monetary union affects savings, net foreign asset positions, and fiscal space across member states when households face incomplete insurance. Lower benefits reduce unemployment and increase fiscal space in the reforming country. Employed workers increase their precautionary savings to compensate for reduced public insurance. A portion of these savings is invested abroad, pushing the non-reforming country into a negative net foreign asset position and lowering its long-run consumption. Despite raising fiscal space and long-run average consumption in the reforming country, the reform may decrease ex-ante welfare because it reduces insurance and depresses consumption during the transition as households self-insure through higher savings. We discipline our proposed model with firm-level evidence on Germany’s post-reform tradable-sector expansion following the Hartz IV reform of unemployment benefits. In our simulation, this reform accounts for a substantial share of the observed post-reform open-economy adjustment, whereas the earlier wage moderation cannot explain most of the observed patterns.
中文摘要
本文研究当家庭面临不完全保险时，货币联盟某一成员国的失业保险改革如何影响各成员国的储蓄、净外国资产头寸和财政空间。降低失业救济金会减少改革国的失业并扩大其财政空间。就业工人增加预防性储蓄，以补偿公共保险的减少。这些储蓄的一部分投资于国外，使非改革国陷入负净外国资产头寸并降低其长期消费。尽管改革提高了改革国的财政空间和长期平均消费，但由于其减少了保险，并在转型期间因家庭通过增加储蓄进行自我保险而压低了消费，该改革可能降低事前福利。我们利用关于德国在哈茨四世失业保险改革后可贸易部门扩张的厂商层面证据来约束我们提出的模型。在我们的模拟中，该改革解释了改革后观察到的开放经济调整的相当大一部分，而较早的工资节制无法解释所观察到的大部分模式。