Redistribution and unemployment insurance [Blog AFSE] [JMP version] [New version coming soon!]. Distinguished CESifo Affiliate Award 2025.
Abstract: This paper analyzes the interactions between redistribution and unemployment insurance policies and their implications for the optimal design of tax-benefit systems. In a setting where individuals with different earnings abilities are exposed to unemployment risk on the labor market, I characterize the optimal income tax schedule and the optimal unemployment benefit schedule in terms of empirically estimable sufficient statistics. I provide a Pareto-efficiency condition for tax-benefit systems that implies a tight link between optimal redistribution and optimal unemployment insurance: the steeper the profile of income taxes is, the flatter the profile of unemployment benefits should be, and vice versa. Optimal replacement rates are therefore monotonically decreasing with earnings, from 1 at the bottom of the earnings distribution to 0 at the top, and redistribution through unemployment benefits is efficient. Empirical applications show that these interactions between redistribution and unemployment insurance have important quantitative implications.
Gender differences in the impact of unemployment benefits: Evidence from a RKD in France (with Federica Meluzzi & Arne Uhlendorff).
Abstract: This paper shows the existence of gender differences in the impact of unemploy- ment insurance (UI) benefits on unemployment duration. Leveraging a kink in the relationship between previous earnings and UI benefits in the French UI system, we estimate that a 1% increase in the amount of UI benefits leads on average to a 0.9 to 2.0% increase in unemployment duration. However, this average effect masks an important heterogeneity across gender: we find strong positive elasticities for males (1.3 to 2.7), whereas estimated elasticities for females are small (0 to 0.9) and not statistically different from zero. These differences cannot be explained by differences in observed characteristics like age, education and experience. Instead, we provide suggestive evidence that part of these heterogeneous elasticities is driven by gender differences in job search preferences and job search behavior.
Sufficient statistics for nonlinear tax systems with general across-income heterogeneity (with Ben Lockwood & Dmitry Taubinsky). American Economic Review, 114(10), 2024. [Journal webpage]
Inattention and the taxation bias (with Jérémy Boccanfuso). Journal of the European Economic Association, jvad056, 2023. [Journal webpage] ITAX PhD Award at IIPF Conference 2019.
Incentives, globalization, and redistribution (with Andreas Haufler & Carlo Perroni). Journal of Public Economics, 224 , 2023. [Journal webpage]
Housing benefits and monetary incentives to work: Simulations for France. Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics, 503-504, 37-59, 2019. [Master Thesis]
Renewable energy policies and private sector investment: Evidence from financial microdata (with Miguel Cardenas-Rodriguez, Ivan Hascic, Nick Johnstone & Jerome Silva). Environmental and Resource Economics, 62(1), 163-188, 2015.