New publication !

• "Réforme du salaire journalier de référence et trajectoires professionnelles", 2025, with Fontaine, F. and M. To, in Rapport du comité d’évaluation de la réforme de l’assurance chômage 2019-2021, French Ministry of Labor; See the summary!

Abstract: This study evaluates the effects of the reform to the salaire journalier de référence (SJR), implemented on October 1, 2021, as part of a broader overhaul of the French unemployment insurance system. The reform introduced substantial changes to the calculation of unemployment benefits for job seekers with fragmented employment histories—those who alternate between periods of work and non-employment. Specifically, while the reform reduced the daily unemployment benefit amount (SJR) by 0 to 10%, it simultaneously extended the maximum potential duration of benefit entitlement by up to 75%, depending on individual profiles. To assess the causal impact of the reform, the study employs a difference-in-differences methodology on administrative data, leveraging the heterogeneous exposure of individuals to the reform. Exposure is determined by the share of time spent without a job between the first and last employment spells over the two-year reference period. The most affected individuals are those with over 50% of non-employment periods between contracts. The results show that for these most exposed individuals, the reform led to a reduction in benefit levels and a substantial increase in potential entitlement duration. Importantly, this shift was associated with a rise in employment: the number of days worked in the six months following job loss increased by 5% to 20% for the most exposed, with estimated employment-to-benefit elasticities ranging from –0.5% to –0.9%. The reform also reduced reliance on unemployment insurance, with the probability of drawing benefits dropping by approximately 2 percentage points. Despite its objective of encouraging more stable and continuous career paths, the reform does not appear to have had any detectable impact on the nature of the jobs found (e.g. permanent vs. fixed-term contracts), their duration, the wages earned, or broader patterns of occupational mobility. While the reform did reduce benefit generosity, it did not trigger any significant shift toward minimum income schemes such as the RSA, limiting its fiscal effects to the unemployment insurance budget alone. For those receiving unemployment insurance, the combination of lower benefit amounts and quicker returns to work translated into a reduction in cumulative benefits received, with losses reaching up to €1,000 over a six-month period.