Reemployment effects from increased activation: Evidence from times of crisis
Pedro Martins and
Sofia Pessoa e Costa ()
No 52, Working Papers from Queen Mary, University of London, School of Business and Management, Centre for Globalisation Research
Abstract:
Although activation services such as monitoring, training, job subsidies or workfare have been shown to increase exits from unemployment, there is no evidence about their effects during recessions. We address this policy-relevant question by evaluating a large activation programme introduced in Portugal in early 2012, a time of very high and still increasing unemployment. The programme was based on requiring specific unemployment benefit recipients to meet caseworkers in jobcentres and then participate in active labour market policies. Our analysis draws on rich longitudinal data, the targeted nature of the programme (namely of its component focused on those unemployed for at least six months), and fuzzy regression discontinuity methods. We find that, despite the weak labour market, the programme is very succesful as it doubles the monthly reemployment probability. Moreover, we find no effects in terms of income or transitions to non-employment. The results are robust to a number of checks, including a falsification exercise based on pre-programme data.
Keywords: Public employment services; job search; public policy evaluation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J22 J64 J68 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-lab and nep-lma
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cgs:wpaper:52
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