The Public Employment Agency (PEA) helps unemployed to find work and mediates PEA-registered job vacancies to job seekers via vacancy referrals. Using the spatial and temporal variation resulting from the regional roll-out of the Hartz 3 reform we are able to show that Hartz 3, which changed...

Does the priming of street-level bureaucrats with negative news stories on immigration influence their decisions regarding unemployment benefits? Previous research has established that regional-level peer pressure on public employees and the national-level salience of immigration debates...

Our paper analyzes the role of public employment agencies in job matching, in particular the effects of the restructuring of the Federal Employment Agency in Germany (Hartz III labor market reform) for aggregate matching and unemployment. Based on two microeconomic datasets, we show that the...

In a randomised controlled trial in Austria, lowering caseloads for caseworkers in a Public Employment Office led to more meetings with unemployed clients, more job offers, more programme assignments, and more sanctions for noncompliance with job search requirements. It shortened unemployment...

Our paper analyzes the role of public employment agencies in job matching, in particular the effects of the restructuring of the Federal Employment Agency in Germany (Hartz III labor market reform) for aggregate matching and unemployment. Based on two microeconomic datasets, we show that the...

Our paper analyzes the role of public employment agencies in job matching, in particular the effects of the restructuring of the Federal Employment Agency in Germany (Hartz III labor market reform) for aggregate matching and unemployment. Based on two microeconomic datasets, we show that the...

In dieser Studie geben wir einen Überblick über die neue Europäische Arbeitsbehörde (ELA), ihre Ziele und Befugnisse, und nehmen eine erste Analyse der ELA vor. Die ELA hat einerseits das weitreichende und wichtige Ziel, die Rechte mobiler Arbeitnehmer*innen in der EU besser durchzusetzen,...

In this study, we provide an overview of the recently established European Labour Authority (ELA), its goals and powers, before offering a preliminary analysis of ELA. In brief, ELA is an agency with the broad and important objective of improving the enforcement of mobile workers’ rights in...

Our paper analyzes the role of public employment agencies in job matching, in particular the effects of the restructuring of the Federal Employment Agency in Germany (Hartz III labor market reform) for aggregate matching and unemployment. Based on two microeconomic datasets, we show that the...

Our paper aims at improving the understanding for the role of public employment agencies in job matching. We analyze the effects of the restructuring of the Federal Employment Agency in Germany (Hartz III labor market reform) for aggregate matching and unemployment. Based on two microeconomic...

Our paper analyzes the role of public employment agencies in job matching, in particular the effects of the restructuring of the Federal Employment Agency in Germany (Hartz III labor market reform) for aggregate matching and unemployment. Based on two microeconomic datasets, we show that the...

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered renewed interest in the use of different fiscal spending and transfer programmes to address the worsening conditions and deepening inequalities within the labour markets. This paper reviews the role of specific fiscal spending and transfer programmes in shaping...

As part of broader digitalisation efforts, half of public employment services (PES) in OECD countries are employing Artificial Intelligence (AI) to enhance their services. AI is being adopted across all key tasks of PES, including most commonly to match jobseekers with vacancies. While several...

Latvia’s public employment service, the State Employment Agency (SEA), is undertaking a modernisation of its service delivery. This review discusses the SEA’s digitalisation needs and strategy to guide its modernisation efforts. It provides a detailed assessment of the SEA’s digital...

Labor Market Intermediaries (LMIs) are entities or institutions that interpose themselves between workers and firms to facilitate, inform, or regulate how workers are matched to firms, how work is accomplished, and how conflicts are resolved. This paper offers a conceptual foundation for...

In this paper we report the results of an empirical study on the employment growth effects of a policy intervention, explicitly aimed at increasing placement efficiency of the Federal Employment Agency in Germany. We use the Hartz III reform in the year 2004 as an exogenous intervention that...

The paper starts by presenting some stylised facts on youth unemployment over the last two decades, both at the euro area and the country level. It shows that despite declining considerably over the last few years, youth unemployment has remained at a high level relative to other age groups in...

The aim of this report, which has been prepared by a Task Force of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Eurosystem, is to describe and analyse the main developments in labour supply and its determinants in the euro area, review the links between labour supply and labour market institutions,...

We evaluate a randomized experiment of a statistical support system developed to assist caseworkers in Swiss employment offices in choosing appropriate active labour market programmes for their unemployed clients. This statistical support system predicted the labour market outcome for each...

In July 2004, the Belgian government intensified monitoring within the Unemployment Insurance scheme. Workers claiming unemployment benefits for more than 13 months are notified that past job-search behavior will be monitored 8 months later. In one region the target group is counselled shortly...

A central concern in economics is to understand the interplay between institutions and labor markets. In this paper we argue that laboratory experiments are a powerful tool for studying labor market institutions. One of the most important advantages is the ability to implement truly exogenous...

Drawing on a literature review, this paper looks at the role that preferential tax regimes (PTRs) for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) play in encouraging enterprise formalization and enterprise growth. The main focus is on emerging economies, notably from Latin America, where this...

Sweden is undergoing a major reform of its public employment service (PES) Arbetsförmedlingen, shifting its main role from providing in-house services towards monitoring of providers and working with different stakeholders in guiding and implementing labour market policies. At the same time,...

Plus les chômeurs et chômeuses sont nombreux·ses, plus ils et elles sont suspecté·es d'être la cause du chômage. Tel pourrait être le paradoxe des politiques de l'emploi, en France comme ailleurs. Que celles-ci prennent les traits américains du workfare ou ceux plus européens de l'«...

This working paper describes the record linkage of the ”Data Fund of Societal Work Power” of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) with administrative labour market biography data of the German Federal Employment Agency. The linkage success rate was 77%. Due to legal restrictions, the...

The self-employed and micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) account for the greatest share of employment and make up the largest number of economic units worldwide. However, some countries exclude these economic units from certain obligations under their national labour laws in the...

The functioning of labor and product markets affects the economic environment in which monetary policy is conducted. For example, structural policy measures which enhance labor supply and employment growth increase the pace at which an economy can grow without higher inflation. A greater...

This paper studies whether the decentralization of public employment services (PES) increases job placements among the unemployed. Decentralizing PES has been a widely applied reform used by governments aiming to enhance their efficacy. However, economic theory is ambiguous about its effects,...

Mit dem vorliegenden Bericht "30 Jahre Arbeitsmarktpolitik für Frauen in Österreich", der im Auftrag der Abteilung "Arbeitsmarktpolitik für Frauen" des Arbeitsmarktservice (AMS) im Jahr 2019 von der Forschungs- und Beratungsstelle Arbeitswelt (FORBA) realisiert wurde, wird die überaus...

This paper aims to study the shortcomings and merits of the first experiment of quasi-market in the provision of employment services: the Lombardy DUL (Dote Unica Lavoro). This system, which has inspired the 2015 national reform within the Jobs Act, has reactivated and revitalized the sector by...

This paper studies whether the decentralization of public employment services (PES) increases job placements among the unemployed. Decentralizing PES has been a widely applied reform used by governments aiming to enhance their efficacy. However, economic theory is ambiguous about its effects,...

This paper aims to study the shortcomings and merits of the first experiment of quasi-market in the provision of employment services: the Lombardy DUL (Dote Unica Lavoro). This system, which has inspired the 2015 national reform within the Jobs Act, has reactivated and revitalized the sector by...

During the twentieth century, German government and industry created a highly skilled workforce as part of an ambitious program to control and develop the country's human resources. Yet, these long-standing efforts to match as many workers as possible to skilled vocations and to establish a...