This paper evaluates a hiring subsidy for lower-educated youths in Flanders (Belgium) that reduced labour costs by approximately 13% for a period of two years, starting in 2016. Using a donut Regression Discontinuity Design, we find no evidence that the subsidy improved the job finding rate of...

Policies supporting small businesses are popular among policymakers but often criticised by economists for their potential to distort the economy. This paper provides a comprehensive evaluation of a unique policy that subsidises the first employee. Empirically, we find that the policy led to a...

We develop and estimate a non-stationary job search model to evaluate a scheme that monitors job search effort and sanctions insured unemployed whose effort is deemed insufficient. The model reveals that such schemes provide incentives to the unemployed to front-load search effort prior to...