This paper presents the results of an experimental study on unemployment benefit sanctions. The experimental set-up allows us to distinguish between the effect of benefit sanctions once they are imposed (the ex post effect) and the effect that unemployed want to avoid getting a benefit sanction...

In 1998 the Slovenian UI system was drastically reformed. The reform reduced the potential duration of unemployment benefits substantially and simultaneously improved employment services offered to, and monitoring of, the recipients. We find that the reduction in potential benefit duration had a...

We present a theoretical and empirical analysis of different types of active labor market policies (ALMP). In our empirical analysis we use data on 20 OECD countries covering the time period 1985-1999. We find that labor market training is the most effective program to bring down unemployment....

We model how unemployment benefit sanctions - benefit reductions that are imposed if unemployed do not comply with job search guidelines - affect unemployment. In our analysis we find that not only micro effects concerning the behavior of individual unemployed workers are relevant, but also...

This paper analyzes the design of optimal unemployment insurance in a search equilibrium framework where search effort among the unemployed is not perfectly observable. We examine to what extent the optimal policy involves monitoring of search effort and benefit sanctions if observed search is...

This paper investigates the effectiveness of benefit sanctions in reducing unemployment duration. Data from the Swiss labor market allow making a distinction between the effect of a warning that a person is not complying with eligibility requirements and the effect of the actual enforcement of a...

This paper provides a comprehensive evaluation of benefit sanctions ,i.e. temporary reductions in unemployment benefits as punishment for noncompliance with eligibility requirements. In addition to the effects on unemployment durations, we evaluate the effects on post-unemployment employment...

This paper uses information from a panel of Dutch firms to investigate the labor productivity effects of performance related pay (PRP). We find that PRP increases labor productivity at the firm level with about 9% and employment with about 5%.

This paper investigates how the potential duration of unemployment benefits affects the quality of post-unemployment jobs. It takes advantage of a natural experiment introduced by a change in Slovenia's unemployment insurance law that substantially reduced the potential benefit duration....

In an experimental setting some Danish unemployed workers were assigned to an activation program while others were not. Unemployed who were assigned to the activation program found a job more quickly. We show that the activation effect increases with the distance between the place of residence...