Causal effects of a policy change on hazard rates of a duration outcome variable are not identified from a comparison of spells before and after the policy change if there is unobserved heterogeneity in the effects and no model structure is imposed. We develop a discontinuity approach that...

We estimate the effect of active labour-market programmes on the exit rate to regular employment for non-western immigrants in Denmark who receive social assistance. We use the timing-of-events duration model and rich administrative data. We find large positive post-programme effects, and,...

The public employment service (PES) makes use in many countries of vacancy referrals as to facilitate the matching between unemployed workers and vacancies. Based on a “timing-of-events” approach to control for selective participation, this study evaluates whether this policy instrument...

We use the stochastic frontier approach to estimate the reservation wage across different city groups in Colombia. We use the information of GEIH from 2008-2019 of 23 urban cities. We find empirical evidence in favor of the search theory predictions that suggest a positive relationship between...

We analyze the effects of an ALMP for disadvantaged workers implemented in a depressed area of Italy. Using propensity-score matching, we find that a) the employment subsidy had a positive effect for participants on both the probability of finding a job and income, b) the outcome of the policy...

Hiring subsidies are widely used to create (stable) employment for the long-term unemployed. This paper exploits the abolition of a hiring subsidy targeted at long-term unemployed jobseekers older than 45 years of age in Belgium to evaluate its effectiveness in the short and medium run. Based on...

Long-term unemployment reached unprecedented levels in Spain in the wake of the Great Recession and it still affects around 57% of the unemployed. We document the sources that contributed to the rise in long-term unemployment and analyze its persistence using state-of-the-art duration models. We...

In this paper we analyze empirically different specifications of a sample selection model. We are interested in how the estimates vary across alternative assumptions concerning the joint conditional distribution of the sample selection equation errors, such us the specification of error...

This paper investigates whether the early experience of non-employment has a causal impact on workers’ subsequent career. The analysis is based on a sample of low educated youth graduating between 1994 and 2002 in Flanders (Belgium). To correct for selective incidence of non-employment, we...

This paper presents an impact evaluation of a revamped version of the Dominican Republic’s youth training program Juventud y Empleo. The paper analyzes the impact of the program on traditional labor market outcomes and on outcomes related to youth behavior and life style, expectations about...