This study uses survey data among both a random sample (N = 500) and a convenience sample (N = 2,919) of Flemish adults to assess public support for 24 potential labour market reforms. The results show that there is a lot of public support for (both encouraged and mandatory) training and...

This article introduces the metaphor of the iceberg in the labour market. While policy in most OECD countries has historically focussed on reducing unemployment (the tip of the iceberg), the group of inactive people (below the waterline) is much larger. Therefore, we point to the clear...

This note describes some of the early policy developments in the UK and the way in which the framing and understanding of a novel economic problem evolved to include a focus on livelihoods combining social protection and business support orientations. It highlights various points including the...

This article introduces the metaphor of the iceberg in the labour market. While policy in most OECD countries has historically focussed on reducing unemployment (the tip of the iceberg), the group of inactive people (below the waterline) is much larger. Therefore, we point to the clear...

This paper evaluates the impact on employment probabilities of two training programs funded by the European Social Fund in the province of Bolzano, Italy. The programs were addressed to particularly vulnerable groups which were much less skilled and educated than the control group from the...

We evaluate a temporary public sector employment program targeted at individuals with weak labor market attachment, applying dynamic inverse probability weighting to account for dynamic selection. We show that the program is successful in increasing employment and reducing social assistance....

Short-time work - a wage subsidy conditional on hour reductions - has become an important tool of labor market policy in many European countries. As the scope of these policies expanded, concerns about side effects due to adverse selection increased. We develop a model of job retention policies...

This paper surveys the emerging economics literature on the relationship between employee training and firm performance. Most studies find very high returns to training, at least from the perspective of firms, indicating that the costs of training can be recouped in short periods of time. These...

This paper investigates recent developments in meta-analysis, the tool to quantitatively synthesize research in a certain body of literature. After providing a brief overview on how to do a meta-analysis and discussing recent methodological advancements in the field, I review applied...

We study the effect of an increase in the UK state pension age from 65 to 66, a high level internationally, on labour market activity. Despite there being limited financial incentives to retire at the state pension age, we find large effects: the employment rate of 65-year-olds increased by 7.4...

The European Commission has for many years advocated fiscal policies in order to improve the employability of young people. This paper aims at providing a preliminary rough estimate of the cost-effectiveness of rebates on social security contributions granted to employers that Italy has utilized...

The long-term unemployed sometimes lack basic soft skills needed to enter and succeed in the labor market. We examine whether it is possible to develop or enhance these skills among adults by using a large-scale randomized control trial (RCT) to evaluate the effectiveness of an Active Labor...

Subsidizing the geographical mobility of unemployed workers may improve welfare by relaxing their financial constraints and allowing them to find jobs in more prosperous regions. We exploit regional variation in the promotion of mobility programs along administrative borders of German employment...

We examine the efficacy of affirmative action at universities whose value depends on peer and alumni networks. We study an elite Brazilian university that adopted race- and income-based affirmative action at a large scale. Using employer-employee data, we show that a key benefit of attending the...

The Spring of 2021 was a good season for Social Europe, with the European Commission coming forward with an Action Plan to implement the European Pillar of Social Rights, and the Portuguese Presidency of the Council staging an informal summit (i.e. a high level conference with heads of state and...

This paper evaluates the impact on employment probabilities of two training programs funded by the European Social Fund in the province of Bolzano, Italy. The programs were addressed to particularly vulnerable groups which were much less skilled and educated than the control group from the...

This paper studies how training vouchers increase the employment prospects of women with interrupted employment histories. Using the population of female job returners who receive a training voucher to participate in training programs and a randomly selected control group from German...

The long-term unemployed sometimes lack basic soft skills needed to enter and succeed in the labor market. We examine whether it is possible to develop or enhance these skills among adults by using a large-scale randomized control trial (RCT) to evaluate the effectiveness of an Active Labor...

Background: COVID-19 and its preventive measures affect not only the state of public health but also the economy. The economic impact of COVID-19 varies depending on age, and it is argued that young people have experienced the greatest negative impacts. Methods: This study was an analysis of the...

It is a challenge for politics that an aging population leads to demands that the retirement age is increasing while not everyone is able to work to such a higher age. Sweden, like other countries, has several options for early exit from the labour market. However, the regulations have become...

We study how licensing, certification and unionisation affect the wages of natives and migrants and their representation among licensed, certified, and unionized workers. We provide evidence of a dual role of labor market institutions, which both screen workers based on unobservable...

We present a quarterly narrative database of important labour market reforms in selected euro area economies in between 1995 and 2018 covering 60 events. We provide legal adoption and implementation dates of major reforms to employment protection legislation and unemployment benefits. Estimates...

The working poor were long thought of as people toiling away in lousy, under-protected and underpaid jobs in places like fast-food joints, supermarkets, hotels and bars. The perfidious consequence of that perception was that in-work poverty was seen as a non-issue in countries with extensive...

Activation policies to promote self-sufficiency among recipients of welfare and other types of benefits are becoming more common in many welfare states. We evaluate a law change in Norway making welfare receipt conditional on participation in an activation program for all welfare recipients...

This paper studies the impact on the length of school-to-work transition of a reform that extended from two to three years the short vocational track in Italy in the early 2000s. In the empirical analysis we use the Two Way Fixed Effect methodology to estimate the impact of the reform,...

The paper focuses on the activities of the Eurodistrict PAMINA in the cross-border labour market, including the associated training measures. Here the concrete needs and practice-oriented approaches of a dynamic labour market region meet the complex challenges of a multi-level system, the...

Hiring subsidies are widely used to create (stable) employment for the long-term unemployed. This paper exploits the abolition of a hiring subsidy targeted at long-term unemployed jobseekers older than 45 years of age in Belgium to evaluate its effectiveness in the short and medium run. Based on...