On Two Different Approaches to the Optimal Unemployment Insurance Policy

Abstract

The article focuses on two different analytical approaches to the optimal unemployment insurance policy. The aim is to delve deeper into the particular independence between different formal designs of unemployment insurance schemes. The main point has been to frame these designs into two very important general principles and to show that the two principles remain fundamental keys to reading the models adopted regardless of their chosen formal setting. On the real policy plane, strong differences between countries’ actual unemployment insurance schemes are then underlined. The “OECD tax-benefit model” has been the precious informative source for the different basic structure of benefit provision in many counties. The possible connections between the analytical area and the actual area of unemployment insurance schemes and the number of related questions and largely open issues conclude the article.