We study the effects of performance bonuses in immigrant language training for adults. A Swedish policy pilot conducted in 2009–2010 gave a randomly assigned group of municipalities the right to grant substantial cash bonuses to recently arrived migrants. The results suggest substantial...

Employment and wage subsidies are used to combat long-term unemployment, yet there is little research to guide the design of such programs. Discontinuities in the design and implementation of wage subsidies under the Swedish New Start Jobs-policy allow us to study effects of both subsidy rate...

We have estimated effects of job practice for participants entering the programme between 1999 and 2006. On average the programme had a moderately sized positive effect for the participants – the expected time to work for the unemployed participants was reduced by around six per cent over a...

This paper discusses the case for expanding active labor market policy in recession. We find that there is reasonable case for relying more heavily on certain kinds of programs. The argument is tied to the varying size of the lock-in effect in boom and recession. If programs with relatively...

This paper summarizes a set of expert reports commissioned by the IFAU. The expert reports cover Estonia, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. These countries represent range of welfare states, both in terms of scope and design. And in each country there are...

In this paper we provide a description of the labor market in the Netherlands. Compared to other OECD countries labor force participation is high and the unemployment rate is low (also for young workers). Among the unemployed there are, however, relatively many long-term unemployed workers....

This paper reviews how income-support systems affect labour force participation in the UK. The UK’s approach to social insurance is “basic security”, with modest, typically flat-rate, benefits; insurance-based benefits are relatively unimportant. Compared with the EU, the UK has high...

This paper looks at welfare reforms in Italy and their effects on labour supply. I focus on social security reforms, which have taken place in the 1990s and on labour market reforms. Old age social security expenditure in Italy is high (14% of GDP) and the system has been very generous on early...

In this paper we give an overview of labour supply incentives present in the Estonian income support system and how changes during the last ten years in the Estonian benefit system have influenced the incentives. As Estonia belongs to the group of EU countries where both taxes and social...

This article uses a matched employer-employee panel data of the Swedish labor market to study immigrant wage assimilation, decomposing the wage catch-up into parts which can be attributed to relative wage growth within and between workplaces and occupations. This study shows that failing to...