The Threat of Monitoring Job Search: A Discontinuity Design

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 monitoring increases transitions to employment, but of lower quality. In the less prosperous region, Wallonia, the impact is smaller, despite of the presence of specific counseling for the notified workers, and more heterogeneous. Moreover, in this region, the threat induces women to substitute sickness for unemployment benefits.

[1]  Orley Ashenfelter,et al.  Do Unemployment Insurance Recipients Actively Seek Work? Evidence From Randomized Trials in Four U.S. States , 2005 .

[2]  Jan C. van Ours,et al.  How Effective are Unemployment Benefit Sanctions? Looking Beyond Unemployment Exit , 2009, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[3]  Lars Pico Geerdsen.  Is There a Threat Effect of Labour Market Programmes? A Study of Almp in the Danish Ui System , 2006 .

[4]  Halbert White,et al.  Estimation, inference, and specification analysis , 1996 .

[5]  Erich Battistin,et al.  Ineligibles and eligible non-participants as a double comparison group in regression-discontinuity designs , 2008 .

[6]  J. Zweimüller,et al.  The Public Health Costs of Job Loss , 2009, Journal of health economics.

[7]  Bart Cockx,et al.  Duration Dependence in the Exit Rate Out of Unemployment in Belgium: Is it True or Spurious? , 2002, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[8]  Bart Cockx,et al.  Is the Notification of Monitoring a Threat to the Unemployed? A Regression Discontinuity Approach , 2007, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[9]  Jan C. van Ours,et al.  How Changes in Financial Incentives Affect the Duration of Unemployment , 2004, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[10]  Bruce D. Meyer.  Lessons from the U.S. Unemployment Insurance Experiments , 1995 .

[11]  Peter Dolton,et al.  Unemployment Duration and the Restart Effect: Some Experimental Evidence , 1996 .

[12]  How Effective are Unemployment Benefit Sanctions? , 2009 .

[13]  Terry R. Johnson,et al.  Experimental Evidence on Unemployment Insurance Work-Search Policies , 1994 .

[14]  Jan C. van Ours,et al.  The Effect of Benefit Sanctions on the Duration of Unemployment , 2002, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[15]  A. Manning.  You can't always get what you want: The impact of the UK Jobseeker's Allowance , 2009 .

[16]  Sidney Addelman,et al.  trans-Dimethanolbis(1,1,1-trifluoro-5,5-dimethylhexane-2,4-dionato)zinc(II) , 2008, Acta crystallographica. Section E, Structure reports online.

[17]  G. Ridder,et al.  Social employment of welfare recipients in Belgium: an evaluation , 2001 .

[18]  Walter J. Murphy,et al.  The Employment Outlook , 1947 .

[19]  Dale T. Mortensen,et al.  Chapter 15 Job search and labor market analysis , 1986 .

[20]  Anders Holm,et al.  Duration of UI periods and the perceived threat effect from labour market programmes , 2007 .

[21]  Marco Caliendo,et al.  Benefit Duration, Unemployment Duration and Job Match Quality: A Regression-Discontinuity Approach , 2009, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[22]  J. Hahn,et al.  IDENTIFICATION AND ESTIMATION OF TREATMENT EFFECTS WITH A REGRESSION-DISCONTINUITY DESIGN , 2001 .

[23]  P. Dolton,et al.  The Long‐Run Effects of Unemployment Monitoring and Work‐Search Programs: Experimental Evidence from the United Kingdom , 2002, Journal of Labor Economics.

[24]  Terry R. Johnson,et al.  Effects of Unemployment Insurance Work-Search Requirements: The Maryland Experiment , 2002 .

[25]  J. Gans,et al.  Born on the First of July: An (Un)Natural Experiment in Birth Timing , 2006 .

[26]  Takeshi Amemiya,et al.  A Modified Logit Model: A Note , 1975 .

[27]  Mark C. Berger,et al.  Is the Threat of Reemployment Services More Effective than the Services Themselves? Evidence from Random Assignment in the UI System * , 2003 .

[28]  Barbara Petrongolo.  The Long-Term Effects of Job Search Requirements: Evidence from the UK JSA Reform , 2008, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[29]  B. Holmlund,et al.  Improving Incentives in Unemployment Insurance: A Review of Recent Research , 2003, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[30]  David Card,et al.  The Spike at Benefit Exhaustion: Leaving the Unemployment System or Starting a New Job? , 2007, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[31]  David S. Lee.  Randomized experiments from non-random selection in U.S. House elections , 2005 .

[32]  Bart Cockx,et al.  The Exhaustion of Unemployment Benefits in Belgium: Does it Enhance the Probability of Employment? , 2004 .

[33]  M. Rosholm.  Experimental Evidence on the Nature of the Danish Employment Miracle , 2008 .

[34]  Muriel Dejemeppe.  A Complete Decomposition of Unemployment Dynamics Using Longitudinal Grouped Duration Data , 2005 .

[35]  J. Ours,et al.  Why is There a Spike in the Job Finding Rate at Benefit Exhaustion? , 2009, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[36]  M. Rosholm,et al.  The Threat Effect of Active Labour Market Programmes , 2008 .

[37]  B. Klaauw,et al.  Counseling and Monitoring of Unemployed Workers: Theory and Evidence from a Controlled Social Experiment , 2001 .

[38]  J. S. Hunter,et al.  Statistics for experimenters : an introduction to design, data analysis, and model building , 1979 .

[39]  David S. Lee,et al.  Regression Discontinuity Designs in Economics , 2009 .

[40]  J. Ours,et al.  Does reducing unemployment insurance generosity reduce job match quality , 2008 .

[41]  D. McVicar.  Job search monitoring intensity, unemployment exit and job entry: Quasi-experimental evidence from the UK , 2008 .

[42]  D. Campbell,et al.  Regression-Discontinuity Analysis: An Alternative to the Ex-Post Facto Experiment , 1960 .

[43]  Jan C. van Ours,et al.  How to Help Unemployed Find Jobs Quickly: Experimental Evidence from a Mandatory Activation Program , 2006 .

[44]  Justin McCrary,et al.  Manipulation of the Running Variable in the Regression Discontinuity Design: A Density Test , 2007 .

[45]  Jan C. van Ours,et al.  Optimal Unemployment Insurance With Monitoring and Sanctions , 2001 .

[46]  A. R. Zinsmeister,et al.  Statistics for Experimenters: An Introduction to Design, Data Analysis, and Model Building, by G. E. P. Box, W. G. Hunter, and J. S. Hunter , 1981 .

[47]  C. Gorter,et al.  Estimating the Effect of Counseling and Monitoring the Unemployed Using a Job Search Model , 1996 .