Job Search Monitoring and Unemployment Duration: Evidence from a Randomised Control Trial

The administration of benefits is a relatively neglected aspect of the analysis of disincentive effects of unemployment benefit systems. We investigate this issue with a field experiment in Hungary involving random assignment of benefit claimants to treatment and control groups, a method of policy evaluation that is still rare in Europe. Treatment, involving a tightening of claim administration, has quite a large effect on durations on benefit of women aged 30 and over, while we find no effect for younger women or men.