The Stabilisation Properties of a European Unemployment Benefit Scheme

Member states with higher unemployment rates do not necessarily always spend more on benefits concludes this report. Moreover, actual expenditure on unemployment benefits seems to react only minimally to actual increases in unemployment, at least for small cyclical variations. This suggests that, outside deep recessions, the fiscal importance of the variations of unemployment over the business cycle might have been overrated. The idea of an EU wide Benefit System may not be easily realised. 

A report downloadable below: