Social welfare systems usually imply specific obligations for benefit recipients. If a recipient does not comply with these obligations, a sanction involving a punitive benefits reduction may be imposed. In this paper we give an overview of the literature on the effects of sanctions in social...

Social welfare systems usually imply specific obligations for benefit recipients. If a recipient does not comply with these obligations, a sanction involving a punitive benefits reduction may be imposed. In this paper we give an overview of the literature on the effects of sanctions in social...

The evaluation of labor market policies has become an important issue in many Europeancountries. In recent years, a number of them have opened their administrative databases forevaluation studies. The advantages of administrative data are straightforward: they areaccurate, contain a large number...

The evaluation of labor market policies has become an important issue in many European countries. In recent years, a number of them have opened their administrative databases for evaluation studies. The advantages of administrative data are straightforward: they are accurate, contain a large...

Public Employment Service (PES) agencies and caseworkers (CW) often have substantial leeway in the design and implementation of active labor market policies (ALMP) for the unemployed, resulting in variation of usage. This paper presents a novel framework in which this variation is used for the...

We structurally estimate a novel job search model with endogenous job search effort, job quality dispersion, and effort monitoring, taking into account that monitoring effects may be mitigated by on-the-job search and search channel substitution. The data are from a randomized experiment...

In the German unemployment insurance system, Integration Agreements (IA) are mandatory contracts between the employment agency and the unemployed, jointly signed by the latter and the caseworker. IAs stipulate rights and obligations but are generally perceived as instruments to control search...

Integration Agreement (IA) are contracts between the employment agency and the unemployed, nudging the latter to comply with rules on search behavior. We designed and implemented an RCT involving thousands of newly unemployed workers, randomizing at the individual level both the timing of the IA...

Comprehensive evidence has shown that unemployment can have adverse effects on an individuals' mental and physical health condition. However little is known about the side effects of governmental policies that aim to promote the unemployed's reintegration into the labor market on the health...

Public Employment Service (PES) agencies and caseworkers (CW) often have substantial leeway in the design and implementation of active labor market policies (ALMP) for the unemployed, resulting in variation in the intensity of usage per policy. This paper presents a novel framework in which this...