Abstract

Under an important scheme in the Italian system of income support for the unemployed, the "indennità di mobilità" (introduced in 1991), this benefit is transerable to any employer who would hire the beneficiary. This is the core of the benefit transfer program proposed by Snower, which has received much attention in the debate on reforming unemployment insurance in Europe. We use survival analysis to estimate the effect of such a scheme on unemployment duration and re-employment probabilities, for a sample of unemployed workers enrolled in the mobility list in the Region of Umbria. We find that the benefit transfer does not seem to be effective in redistributing employment opportunities. In particular, re-employment probabilities are lower for older workers, who are entitled to a benefit of longer duration: apparently the effect of a higher reservation wage dominates the incentive of a larger subsidy for potential employers.