Long-term unemployment, social assistance and labor market policies in Romania

Long-term unemployment in Romania has grown in both absolute and relative terms in the last few years, leading to increased expenditures, both absolutely and in relation to unemployment benefits, for the support allowance and social assistance programs and for pensions to labor force drop-outs. The paper uses a variety of data sources, including registration information, labor force surveys, and our own survey of registered unemployed (SRU) to describe these trends in the characteristics of Romanian unemployment and to examine differences across unemployment benefit (UB), short-term and long-term support allowance (SA) recipients. We employ the data to estimate the transition flow probability from the UB to the SA program; discuss the work incentives, income maintenance effects, and public costliness of the labor market and social insurance (including pension and disability) policies; and investigate the effects of the policies and of other characteristics of the unemployed and the areas where they live on the hazard for the escape rate from unemployment for UB and SA recipients separately.