The Effect of Benefit Sanctions on the Duration of Unemployment

Lalive, Rafael; van Ours, Jan C.; Zweimüller, Josef

doi:10.2139/ssrn.310342

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The Effect of Benefit Sanctions on the Duration of Unemployment

42 Pages Posted: 12 May 2002

See all articles by Rafael Lalive

Rafael Lalive

University of Lausanne - Department of Economics; IZA Institute of Labor Economics; CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute for Economic Research)

Jan C. van Ours

Tilburg University - Department of Economics; University of Melbourne - Department of Economics

Josef Zweimüller

University of Zurich - Department of Economics; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute); IZA Institute of Labor Economics

There are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: April 2002

Abstract

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 benefit sanction. We find that both warning and enforcement have a positive effect on the exit rate out of unemployment. Moreover, the stricter the sanction policy the shorter is the duration of unemployment of the non-sanctioned. This can be taken as evidence of a strong ex-ante effect of a strict sanction policy.

Keywords: Unemployment Duration, Benefit Sanctions, Monitoring

JEL Classification: J64, J65, J68

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Lalive, Rafael and van Ours, Jan C. and Zweimueller, Josef, The Effect of Benefit Sanctions on the Duration of Unemployment (April 2002). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=310342 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.310342