Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/118608 
Year of Publication: 
2015
Series/Report no.: 
ZEF Discussion Papers on Development Policy No. 199
Publisher: 
University of Bonn, Center for Development Research (ZEF), Bonn
Abstract: 
Social comparisons are important in the employment sphere. A "culture of unemployment" may evolve and prevail because it is optimal for an individual to remain unemployed when other unemployed individuals constitute his main reference group. We advance the idea that by making the receipt of unemployment benefits conditional on engagement in an incentive-enhancing activity (for example, work under state-sponsored employment schemes or participation in work-site-based training programs), a government can engineer a revision of the reference groups of an unemployed individual in order to induce him to seek work.
Subjects: 
unemployment benefits
social comparisons
relative deprivation
JEL: 
D04
D69
H53
J22
J64
J65
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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