Chatting unemployment with James Zuccollo

James and I had a yarn about this post:

What does the unemployment benefit tell us about unemployment?

And we recorded it. We thought we’d share that recording here - keen for your thoughts!

The idea that “unemployment” and “receiving the unemployment benefit” are different things isn’t that natural - but understanding it can help us really think a lot about what the benefit system is meant for, why people keep talking about reform, and what different reforms really mean.

To be honest we barely scratched the surface of the topic (nothing on EMTRs, nothing on fiscal costs) but we still had a lot of fun.

Links discussed in the podcast.

1. Australian Venn Diagram report:

   Does JobSeeker go to JobSeekers?

2. New Zealand Venn Diagram: StatsNZ paper

3. OECD discussion for benefit-unemployment overlap: OECD report

4. Australian reporting on NEET: Two e61 reports discussed in this post

   Understanding youth labour markets in Australia

5. Australian Consumption Scarring report:

   Assessing benefit eligibility and adequacy

6. “Consumption scarring” mechanism research: Malmendier and Sheng Shen (2024)

7. The unemployment benefit as insurance: Chetty (2008).

8. Australian Wage Scarring reports: Coal Fired Power Plant report.

   Costs of job loss: Wage scarring

9. Benefit exhaustion periods and labour supply: Farber and Valletta (2023)

10. Benefit exhaustion and reemployment wages/match value: Schmieder et al (2016) - framework post below:

    What do benefits have to do with wage scarring?

11. The Beveridge Report: Report principles summary.