This paper analyses theoretically and empirically how employment subsidies should betargeted. We contrast measures involving targeting workers with low incomes/abilities andtargeting the unemployed under the criteria of "approximate welfare efficiency" (AWE)...

Recent empirical evidence has found that employment services and small-businessassistance programmes are often successful at getting the unemployed back to work. Oneimportant concern of policy makers is to decide which of these two programmes is moreeffective and for whom...

In many countries, caseworkers in a public employment office have the dual roles ofcounselling and monitoring unemployed persons. These roles often conflict with each otherleading to important caseworker heterogeneity: Some consider providing services to theirclients and satisfying their demands...

This paper examines whether the chances of job placements improve if unemployed persons are counselled by caseworkers who belong to the same social group, defined by gender, age, education, and nationality. Based on an unusually informative dataset, which links Swiss unemployed to their...

This study analyzes the treatment effects of public training programs for the unemployed inGermany. Based on propensity score matching methods we extend the picture that has beensketched in previous studies by estimating treatment effects of medium-term programs fordifferent sub-groups with...

When treatment effects of active labour market programmes are heterogeneous in anobservable way across the population, the allocation of the unemployed into differentprogrammes becomes a particularly important issue. In this paper, we present a statisticalmodel designed to improve the present...