Are Public or Private Providers of Employment Services More Effective? Evidence from a Randomized Experiment

Kai Rehwald (), Michael Rosholm and Michael Svarer
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Kai Rehwald: Aarhus University

No 9365, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper compares the effectiveness of public and private providers of employment services. Reporting from a randomized field experiment conducted in Denmark we assess empirically the case for contracting out employment services for a well-defined group of highly educated job-seekers (unemployed holding a university degree). Our findings suggest, first, that private providers deliver more intense, employment-oriented, and earlier services. Second, public and private provision of employment services are equally effective regarding subsequent labour market outcomes. And third, the two competing service delivery systems appear to be equally costly from a public spending perspective.

Keywords: active labour market policies; job-search assistance; contracting out; private provision of employment services; treatment effect evaluation; randomized trial; cost-analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H41 H43 H44 J64 J68 L33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 43 pages
Date: 2015-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-exp and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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