In Belgium unemployment insurance benefits can only exhaust for one category of workers: partners of workers with (replacement) labour income (mostly women) may loose their entitlement after an unemployment duration ranging from two to eight years, depending on individual characteristics. We...

The current unemployment insurance and employment protection legislation were set up in an environment in which relationships between workers and firms were typically long-lasting and stable. The increasing globalisation of the economy and the rapid technological and organisational changes...

We verify whether an income support policy for part-time workers in Belgium increases the transition from unemployment to non-subsidised, “regular” employment. Using a sample of 8630 long-term unemployed young women, whose labour market history is observed from 1998 to 2001, we implement the...

In July 2004, the Belgian government intensified monitoring within the Unemployment Insurance scheme. Workers claiming unemployment benefits for more than 13 months are notified that past job-search behavior will be monitored 8 months later. In one region the target group is counselled shortly...

Since July 2004 the job search effort of long-term unemployed benefit claimants is monitored in Belgium. We exploit the discontinuity in the treatment assignment at the age of 30 to evaluate the effect of a notification sent at least 8 months before job search is verified. The threat of...

This paper assesses whether short-lived jobs (lasting one quarter or less and involuntarily ending in unemployment) are stepping stones to long-lasting jobs (enduring one year or more) for Belgian long-term unemployed school-leavers. We proceed in two steps. First, we estimate labour market...

We develop and estimate a non-stationary job search model to evaluate a scheme that monitors job search effort and sanctions insured unemployed whose effort is deemed insufficient. The model reveals that such schemes provide incentives to the unemployed to front-load search effort prior to...

In Belgium school-leavers are entitled to unemployment benefits after a waiting period and eligible to intensified counselling and training in the Youth Work Plan (YWP) if a job is not found within three months. The length of the waiting period and eligibility to the YWP are sharply determined...

This study evaluates the effectiveness of contracting out mandatory publicly provided counselling and training for long-term unemployed in Flanders (Belgium) to private for-profit and non-profit organisations (FPOs and NPOs). A multivariate transition model exploits timing-of-events and novel...

We build and estimate a non-stationary structural job search model that incorporates the main stylized features of a typical job search monitoring scheme in unemployment insurance (UI) and acknowledges that search effort and requirements are measured imperfectly. Based on Belgian data,...