Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/201477 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 2019:13
Publisher: 
Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy (IFAU), Uppsala
Abstract: 
Wage setting models typically posit a tight relationship between the generosity of unemployment insurance (UI) and equilibrium wages. This paper estimates the effect of UI on workers' wages. I build on a unique feature of the unemployment policy in Sweden, where workers can opt to buy supplement UI coverage above a minimum mandated level. In January 2007, the government sharply increased the price of UI, and the share of workers with supplement coverage fell from 90% to 80%. I exploit variation in the price of UI across industries to measure the effect of industry level UI-coverage on wages. My estimates suggest that a 10 percentage point reduction in the share of workers covered by supplement UI reduce wages by 5%. Since I rely on variation in UI-coverage at the industry level, these estimates contain wage adjustments from collective and individual level bargaining. Finally, I use the estimated UI-wage effect to derive bounds on worker bargaining power in a simple DMP model and find that it can be at most 0.12. This evidence support wage setting mechanisms that tie wages to the generosity of UI.
JEL: 
J65
J31
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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