Public Employment Services under Decentralization: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Lukas Mergele and Michael Weber

No 7957, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: 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, and empirical evidence has been scarce. Using a difference-in-differences design, we exploit unique within-country variation in decentralization provided by the partial devolution of German job centers in 2012. We find that decentralization reduces job placements by approximately 10%. Decentralized providers expand the use of public job creation schemes which diminish job seekers’ reemployment prospects but shift costs to higher levels of government.

Keywords: decentralization; public employment services; job placements (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H11 H75 I38 J48 J64 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-lma and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Public employment services under decentralization: Evidence from a natural experiment (2020)
Working Paper: Public employment services under decentralization: Evidence from a natural experiment (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7957

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