Unemployment presents a significant challenge requiring attention not only in developing countries but also in economically developed ones. Active labour market policies offer a potential solution to address this issue. This study focuses on assessing the impact of the intervention called...

There is still a lack of knowledge on how to effectively help the long-term unemployed into employment. We evaluate a wide range of active labour market policies for this target group, using a dynamic matching approach. Measures vary considerably in the extent to which they improve labour market...

We analysed a new counselling and support programme for people with low employment prospects in Austria. The Austrian Public Employment Service introduced regional pilots to investigate whether a new counselling strategy could improve labour market outcomes for this group. Eligible unemployed...

Public works programmes (PWPs) are widely used social protection instruments in low- and middle-income countries. Participants carry out temporary, labour-intensive works in exchange for cash or in-kind compensation. The available empirical evidence indicates that these programmes are usually...

Inequality is a dynamic phenomenon, and the relative and absolute positions of individuals are subject to frequent shocks. It is important to know if preventive interventions mitigate adverse inequality effects of labor market shocks. We consider individuals up to three months before the...

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...

Digitization has spurred interest in the potential of statistical profiling to improve the targeting of active labor market policies. Despite growing adoption, empirical evidence on the effectiveness of such profiling in program allocation is scarce. We evaluate a semi-automated statistical...

We investigate how firms adjust to demand shocks when wages and employment determination are regulated. Using firm-level data for the Italian metal engineering industry from 2009 to 2021, we estimate the elasticity of the wage bill to changes in firm's real sales. We disentangle the effect on...

Short-time work (STW) has been widely used, both during the Great Recession and the COVID crisis, to preserve jobs. In most European countries, the implementation of STW schemes is often the result of bargaining between trade unions and employers, yet very little is known about the role of...

This note discusses how human capital is a job connector and driver of entrepreneurship. It first presents ideas on how to unlock the barriers to accessing productive employment, with particular attention to the challenges facing women and youth. It then discusses human capital as a job creator,...

In a randomised controlled trial in Austria, lower caseloads in public employment offices led to more meetings of the unemployed with their caseworkers, more job offers, more program assignments, and more sanctions for noncompliance with job search requirements. More intensive counselling led to...

The EU member states in Central and Eastern Europe (EU-CEE) have been experiencing increasing labour shortages, which only briefly subsided in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ongoing demographic decline suggests that labour shortages will only get stronger over time. As a result, the...

Active labour market policy (ALMP) is widely used in European countries to reduce youth unemployment and help young people in their transition from school into apprenticeships and employment. Spending on ALMP for young people varies significantly and in surprising ways across countries. However,...

There is still a lack of knowledge on how to effectively help the long-term unemployed into employment. We evaluate a wide range of active labour market policies for this target group, using a dynamic matching approach. Measures vary considerably in the extent to which they improve labour market...

We analysed a new counselling and support programme for people with low employment prospects in Austria. The Austrian Public Employment Service introduced regional pilots to investigate whether a new counselling strategy could improve labour market outcomes for this group. Eligible unemployed...

This paper examines the socio-demographic disparities evident in the early labour market response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Austria, relying on the register-based labour market career dataset from the Austrian Micro Data Center (AMDC) for the 2018-2021 period. The analysis focuses on the...

We study the effects of a new 1% employment quota enacted in Chile in 2018 using anonymized administrative data on monthly employer-employee linkages and disability certification records. Our firm-level difference-in-difference results show a 15-20% increase in the number of people with...

We evaluate the effects of a large-scale enforcement intervention on formal labor flows. The initiative combined a communication component (an official letter/e-mail sent to registered employers) and a punishment component (face-to-face inspections). Using two identification strategies...

We evaluate a non-targeted summer youth employment program (SYEP) for high school students aged 16-19 in Stockholm, Sweden, where public sector job offers were as good as randomly assigned. In contrast to previous studies evaluating SYEP that targeted groups with lower socioeconomic status, we...

We evaluate the direct employment effect of the public investment in key infrastructure - electricity, roads, schools and hospitals, and water and sanitation. Using rich firm-level panel data from 41 countries over 19 years, we estimate that US$1 million of public spending on infrastructure...

We employ a large social experiment combined with register-based data allowing for up to 12-year follow-up to evaluate a long-lasting employer-sponsored health and well-being program. We show that employees at treated worksites receive fewer consultations from their primary care physician and...

Evaluation studies focus exclusively on the impact of Active Labor Market Policies (ALMP) on the functioning of the labor market. In particular, they measure the impact of specific programs on the income and future of target groups. Studies that aim to assess the impact of ALMPs as a whole on...

Autocrats often control social organizations to disseminate their ideology. We examine the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile (1973-1990), where conservative military forces controlled female social organizations to promote traditional roles for women as mothers and housewives. Partnering with...

While policy evaluation is essential for improving labor programs, a significant knowledge gap exists regarding the impact of local labor market policies in developing countries. This article analyzes the impact of three employment programs in Chile aimed at enhancing employability and wages,...

Caseworker meetings have been shown to accelerate exit from unemployment. We explore whether they are also effectual before entering unemployment. In a natural field experiment, we offer caseworker meetings to workers at risk of losing their jobs while they are still employed. We find that the...

This working paper studies the complex relationship between technology adoption and infor­mality, leveraging recent cross-country data to analyse the effects of mobile phone subscrip­tions, internet access, automation and e-government on informal employment, vulnerable em­ployment, and the...

In June 2020, Idaho announced the Return to Work Bonus program, which provided residents who returned to work with bonuses of up to $1,500. Using multiple data sources, we present difference-in-differences, triple differences, and synthetic control estimates suggesting the program may have...

The existing literature investigating the labor market impact of immigration assumes, implicitly or explicitly, that the law or labor regulation is exogenous to immigration. To test this assumption, we build a novel workers' protection measure based on 36 labor law variables that capture labor...