A first objective of this paper is to emphasise the role of a correct diagnosis of unemployment persistence for the design of effective active labour market policies. A second is to stress the importance of adequate incentives for programme administrators of active labour market policies, and...

The distribution of unemployment duration in our equilibrium matching model with spell-dependent unemployment benefits displays a time-varying exit rate. Building on Semi-Markov processes, we translate these exit rates into an expression for the aggregate unemployment rate. Structural estimation...

We evaluate the labour market outcomes of a French training programme for youth, using a non-experimental sample of individuals who completed their studies (or dropped out) in 1998 and were observed until 2003. We use propensity score matching to estimate the impact of participation on three...

In this paper we evaluate the efficacy of Public Employment Services in Italy (PESs) in increasing the unemployment to employment transition probabilities, through matching techniques. Exploiting the longitudinal dimension of the LFS data we design an evaluation structure that allows observing...

We develop and estimate a non-stationary job search model to evaluate as 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...

Since July 2004 the job search effort of long-term unemployed benefit claimants is monitored in Belgium. We exploit the discontinuity in the treatment assignment at the age of 30 to evaluate the effect of a notification sent at least 8 months before job search is verified. The threat of...

The current unemployment insurance and employment protection legislation were set up in an economic environment in which relationships between workers and firms were typically lon-lastingand stable. The increasing globalisation of the economy and the rapid technological and organisational...

This paper provides a simple matching model in which unemployed workers and employers can be matched together trough social network or trough more formal methods of search. We show that this crowding-out effect may be socially costly. For that reason, a policy increasing the social capital of...

In recent years Western governments have introduced a number of emergency measures in their fight against short run unemployment. In this paper a normative analysis concerning the joint implementation of two such measures is offered, viewing unemployment as involuntary, and taking account of the...

In this paper we estimate the impact of temporary employment subsidies for young long-)term unemployed workers in Belgium on the transition rate from employment to non-employment. We account for selective participation on the basis of a multivariate duration model with correlated unobserved...