Although the labour market situation of older workers has significantly improved over time, opportunities to work at older age still vary considerably across EU countries. To trace diverging developments and to assess what works best in retaining employment and bringing older unemployed back to...

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 employment...

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...

In contrast to the recently decreasing unemployment rates in the EU, long-term unemployment remains at alarming levels. An economic recovery will not be sufficient to get all long-term unemployed back to work; rather, there is a need for effective policies addressing the long-term unemployed. To...

Targeted employment subsidy programs are commonly employed by governments. This study examines one such initiative that rebated unemployment insurance premiums for net new insurable employment for youth aged 18 to 24. Using microdata from two datasets to estimate the labour market impacts of...

It is common knowledge that John Maynard Keynes advocated bold government action to deal with recessions and unemployment. What is not commonly known is that modern "Keynesian policies" bear little, if any, resemblance to the policy measures Keynes himself believed would guarantee true full...

Using specific panel data of German welfare benefit recipients, we investigate the non-pecuniary life satisfaction effects of in-work benefits. Our empirical strategy combines difference-in-difference designs with synthetic control groups to analyze transitions of workers between unemployment,...

Using specific panel data of German welfare benefit recipients, we investigate the nonpecuniary life satisfaction effects of in-work benefits. Our empirical strategy combines difference-in-difference designs with synthetic control groups to analyze transitions of workers between unemployment,...

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