Randomizing information on a targeted wage support program for older workers: A field experiment

Gesine Stephan, Gerard van den Berg and Pia Homrighausen

VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change from Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association

Abstract: To address the problem of high reservation wages among older unemployed individuals, a German targeted wage support program aimed at providing incentives to accept lower paid wage offers. We sent out information brochures on this program to randomly selected eligible men. The treatment significantly increased awareness of the program by 20 percentage points. Combining survey and administrative data, we conduct reduced form estimates of the effects of brochure receipt on recipients and estimate local average treatment effects of additional program knowledge. The information treatment significantly increased take-up rates of the program. For unemployed men aged 50--54, we find no positive effects on employment outcomes, thus the additional take-up seems to have been pure windfall. For unemployed men aged 55--59, however, we find some positive effects of additional information on labor market results. The labor market status of unemployed men above age 60 is not affected by brochure receipt.

JEL-codes: J64 J65 J68 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-eur and nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:vfsc16:145487

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