| 1. |
- Hassler, John, et al.
(författare)
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A Positive Theory of Geographic Mobility and Social Insurance
- 2002
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- this paper presents a tractable dynamic general equilibrium model that can explain cross-country empirical regularities in geographical mobility, unemployment and labor market institutions. Rational agents vote over unemployment insurance (UI), taking the dynamic distortionary effects of insurance on the performance of the labor market into consideration. Agents with higher cost of moving, i.e., more attached to their current location, prefer more generous UI. The key assumption is that an agent's attachment to a location increases the longer she has resided there. UI reduces the incentive for labor mobility and increases, therefore, the fraction of attached agents and the political support for UI. The main result is that this self-reinforcing mechanism can give rise to multiple steady-states - one "European" steady-state featuring high unemployment, low geographical mobility and high unemployment insurance, and one "American" steady-state featuring low unemployment, high mobility and low unemployment insurance.
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| 2. |
- Hassler, John, et al.
(författare)
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The Survival of the Welfare State
- 2002
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper provides an analytical chracterization of Markov perfect equilibria in a politico-economic model with repeated voting, where agents vote over distortionary incom redistribution. The key feature of the theory is that the future constituency of redistributive policies depends positively on the current level of redistribution, since this affects both private investments and the future distribution of voters. Agents vote rationally and fully anticipate the effects of their political choice on both private incentives and future voting outcomes. The model features multiple equilibria. In "pro-welfare" equilibria, both welfare state policies and their effects on distribution persist forever. In "anti-welfare equilibria", eben a majority of beneficiaries of redistributive policies vote strategically so as to induce formation of a future majority that will vote for zero redistribution.
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