Feasibility and added value of a European unemployment benefit scheme

Outputs

As lead organisation of the project consortium, CEPS produced a synthesis report, prepared by Miroslav Beblavý, Senior Research Fellow, and Karolien Lenaerts, Researcher, at CEPS, in close collaboration with the consortium partners.

An Executive Summary of the report is published separately as a CEPS Research Report, entitled “Stabilising the European Economic and Monetary Union: What to expect from a common unemployment benefits scheme?” (February 2017).

A third substantive output of this project has also been published on the CEPS website as a CEPS Research Report, entitled “Design of a European Unemployment Benefit Scheme” by Miroslav Beblavý, Karolien Lenaerts and Ilaria Maselli.

More information on the project can be found on the CEPS website here.

Background

A consortium led by CEPS (Centre for European Policy Studies) and including the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER), Cambridge Econometrics (CamEcon), the University of Leuven (KUL) and Eftheia, undertook the project ‘Feasibility and Added Value of a European Unemployment Benefit Scheme’.

Project Aims

The objective of the project was to evaluate the feasibility of an unemployment benefit scheme at the European level in terms of compatibility with national laws and practices, and to assess the value added of such a scheme in terms of income stabilisation and social outcomes.

Methods

The empirical analysis was largely based on microsimulation modelling using EUROMOD linked with macrosimulation modelling using the macro-econometric E3 (Energy-Environment-Economy) model E3ME. The study, on the one hand, analysed the effects an EU unemployment benefit scheme would have had over the period 1995-2013. On the other hand, the performance of the scheme was assessed against alternative stylised shocks, representing different macro environments from those observed in the past.