Targeting Labour Market Programmes - Results from a Randomized Experiment

University of St. Gallen, Department of Economics, Discussion Paper No. 2007-37

45 Pages Posted: 16 Oct 2007

See all articles by Stefanie Behncke

Stefanie Behncke

IZA Institute of Labor Economics; Swiss National Bank

Markus Frölich

Universität Mannheim, Chair of Econometrics

Michael Lechner

University of St. Gallen - Swiss Institute for Empirical Economic Research

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: October 2007

Abstract

We evaluate a randomized experiment of a statistical support system developed to assist caseworkers in Swiss employment offices in choosing appropriate active labour market programmes for their unemployed clients. This statistical support system predicted the labour market outcome for each programme and thereby suggested an 'optimal' labour market programme for each unemployed person. The support system was piloted in several employment offices. In those pilot offices, half of the caseworkers used the system and the other half acted as control group. The allocation of the caseworkers to treatment and control group was random. The experiment was designed such that caseworkers retained full discretion about the choice of active labour market programmes, and the evaluation results showed that caseworkers largely ignored the statistical support system. This indicates that stronger incentives are needed for caseworkers to comply with statistical profiling and targeting systems.

Keywords: Profiling, active labour market programmes, ALMP, statistical treatment rules, unemployment, public employment services

JEL Classification: J68

Suggested Citation

Behncke, Stefanie and Frölich, Markus and Lechner, Michael, Targeting Labour Market Programmes - Results from a Randomized Experiment (October 2007). University of St. Gallen, Department of Economics, Discussion Paper No. 2007-37, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1021673 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1021673

Stefanie Behncke (Contact Author)

IZA Institute of Labor Economics ( email )

Bonn, D-53072

Swiss National Bank ( email )

Financial Stability
Bundesplatz 1
Bern, 3003
Switzerland

Markus Frölich

Universität Mannheim, Chair of Econometrics ( email )

L7, 3-5
68131 Mannheim
D-Mannheim, 68131
Germany

HOME PAGE: http://froelich.vwl.uni-mannheim.de

Michael Lechner

University of St. Gallen - Swiss Institute for Empirical Economic Research ( email )

Varnbuelstrasse 14
St. Gallen, 9000
Switzerland
+41 71 224 2320 (Phone)

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