Contenu du sommaire : Economie des bas revenus

Female part-time work and financial incentives We present a model of female participation in the labor force, which deals with part time work and the minimum wage. The model is estimated on the French employment survey of 1997. We use it to compare various incentive schemes to work: the "allocation compensatoire de revenu", the negative income tax, subsidies to low wages and the "employment bonus".

Labor-force participation in households with two adults This paper presents a structural model of labor-force participation for two adults familles. We estimate jointly the participation of both partners, taking into account unobserved wages of nonworkers. Family utility depends on the household net resources in each possible state. The tax-benefit system is modeled as precisely as possible and the left censoring induced by the minimum wage is explicitly taken into account. The results are based upon French cross-section data from 1999 and are illustrated by several policy simulations (e.g. abolishing certain family benefits, modifying income maintenance programs). We provide estimates for elasticities of participation with respect to labor cost.

Incentives and transitions on the labor market: an analysis of acceptation or refusal employment strategies This paper proposes an intertemporal and consistent framework in order to measure the incentives for returning to employment. A job seeker accepts a job which maximizes the sum of his discounted expected incomes, taking into account earnings associated with every job, worker's mobility between jobs and his rate of preference for the present. In this framework, we show that work can pay, even if it does not pay immediately. Inversely, high immediate gain can be compensated by unfavorable perspectives. These theoretical results - illustrated by numerical simulations - show that monetary gain upon return to employment is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition to explain the existence of a low level of labor force participation originated in incentive problems. preference for the present. In this framework, we show that work can pay, even if it does not pay immediately. Inversely, high immediate gain can be compensated by unfavorable perspectives. These theoretical results - illustrated by numerical simulations - show that monetary gain upon return to employment is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition to explain the existence of a low level of labor force participation originated in incentive problems.

Measuring the redistributive impact of a reform of the welfare system with a new dominance criterion This paper examines a reform of the French welfare system. More precisely, it is a question of granting a decreasing benefit according to earned income. The modulation of this benefit according to the family size and the rent is clarified in detail. Several alternatives of the reform are analyzed and quantified by means of microsimulations on the French sample of the European Panel. The redistributive impact, including financing, is then studied using a new two-dimensional dominance criterion (dimensions income and family size) introducing an interval of acceptable equivalence scales. This criterion allows to conclude to the redistributive interest of the reform whereas the usual criteria, which are based on unbounded equivalence scales, lead to a vague diagnostic.

Unemployment trap, poverty trap and RMI's recipients On the basis of the results of the INSEE survey about recipients of the RMI, we aim to evaluate the empirical relevance of analyses based on the notion of the unemployment trap, according to which recipients of the RMI suffer financial disincentives to work. The unemployment trap does not function very much for recipients of the RMI. First, recipients who are unemployed are very active in job searching and rarely refuse a job and even more rarely for financial reasons. They are more likely to face a shortage of labour demand. Secondly, about one out of three recipients who have accepted a job, do so with no financial advantage. For most of them, however, employment provides enhanced well-being. The risk for RMI recipients is more that of falling into a poverty trap than into an unemployment trap. Indeed, they most often have "poor quality jobs" and remain confined to a secondary sector, with a very low probability of migration towards a primary sector composed of "high quality jobs". often have "poor quality jobs" and remain confined to a secondary sector, with a very low probability of migration towards a primary sector composed of "high quality jobs".

Poverty risk and labor market conditions during the nineties The number of households under the poverty threshold is not avalaible on an annual basis in France, because it is necessary to combine information on individual as well as household incomes to compute it. A way to remedy this lack of information consists first in calculating an individual risk of poverty on the fiscal income survey, and to classify the population according to this risk. It is then possible to follow those different categories on the annual labor survey. This method is not a substitute for a direct computing of the poverty rate, but it allows to analyse the evolution of the poverty risk since 1990. This risk recently tends to decrease both for the people at work and for those out of the labor market, after an increase in the beginning of the nineties. This favourable outcome cannot be observed for people on long term unemployment.

Duration of contracts and unemployment compensation: a quantitative analysis of the dualism of the french labor market The interplay between unemployment compensation and the duration of contracts is analysed in a matching framework. The unemployed after a permanent job are entitled to a long period of unemployment Insurance (UI). The unemployed after a temporary job are not eligible for UI. The former receive offers for permanent and temporary jobs while the latter find only temporary jobs. The variables of the model are estimated using the European Panel. Then some reforms of the unemployment compensation system and of the temporary contracts' legislation are simulated. More generous insurance or assistance benefits slightly raise the unemployment rate and the social welfare. Increasing the legal duration of temporary contracts or their transformation rate in permanent contracts strongly decreases the rate of unemployment and improves the welfare of all the individuals.

Should financial incentives on low skilled jobs favour labour supply or labour demand ? We use dynamical job search matching framework to compare the effects of two policies targeted on low skilled jobs paid at a the minimum wage : reductions of employers' contributions to social security versus reductions of taxes paid by employees such as the « Prime pour l'Emploi ». Our approach integrates simultaneously job search behaviour and frictional unemployment, contrary to previous literature. This type of model allows us to deal with effects of policies on unemployment rate, employment rate and welfare. Our results suggest that reducing employers contributions has larger effects on unemployment rate and unemployment spell, whereas redducing taxes paid by employees has larger effects on participation rates and welfare.

The 1996 us welfare reform : goals, methodologies of evaluation, main outcomes This paper reviews the recent literature evaluating the effectiveness of us Welfare Reforms implemented in the 90's and based on a "Work First" Strategy applied mostly to single mothers beneficiaries of TANF. In the first section, we present in a historical perspective the 1996 Welfare Reform and its major characteristics. We address in the second section, the question of the methodologies adopted in the literature to assess the outcome of the Welfare Reform. In a third section, we present the most robust results provided by these various evaluation studies. Finally, in an open conclusion, we raise the issue of the scope of these results and underline the risks inferred by the Federal Welfare Reform 1996 on Single mothers in a weak macro-economic environment: should economic conditions deteriorate, there is a risk for leaving a fraction of the population without any safety net.

What is the work incentive effect of combining welfare with work ? A reassessment using experimental data What are the effects of making it possible to combine welfare with work? The existing literature suggests that this practice has strong work-incentive effects and represents a means for reducing unemployment and welfare dependency. In this paper we reassess this thesis using new us experimental data. Our findings differ from predictions based on survey data. We find that making it possible to combine welfare with work has only very limited incentive impacts on familles' work effort and significantly increases the welfare caseload.