We investigate the effect of counseling and monitoring on the individual transition rate to employment. We theoretically analyze these policies in a job search model with two search channels and endogenous search effort. In the empirical analysis we use unique administrative and survey data concerning a social experiment with full randomization and compliance. The results do not provide evidence that counseling and monitoring affect the exit rate to work. Monitoring causes a shift from informal to formal job search. We combine our empirical results with the results from our theoretical analysis and the existing empirical literature, to establish a comprehensive analysis of the effectiveness of these policies.

a b s t r a c tThis paper investigates the impact of parental education on child health outcomes. To identify the causal effect we explore exogenous variation in parental education induced by a schooling reform in 1947, which raised the minimum school leaving age in the UK. Findings based on data from the National Child Development Study suggest that increasing the school leaving age by 1 year had little effect on the health of their offspring. Schooling did however improve economic opportunities by reducing financial difficulties among households.

In the Netherlands, the average exit rate out of welfare is dramatically low. Most welfare recipients have to comply with guidelines on job search effort that are imposed by the welfare agency. If they do not, then a sanction in the form of a temporary benefit reduction can be imposed. This article investigates the effect of such sanctions on the transition rate from welfare to work using a unique set of rich register data on welfare recipients. We find that the imposition of sanctions substantially increases the individual transition rate from welfare to work.We are grateful to the Welfare Agency (Dienst Sociale Zaken en Werkgelegenheid) of Rotterdam, and to Daan Spannenberg in particular, for kindly providing the data. We thank David Grubb, Jeff Smith, and Maarten Lindeboom for useful comments, and Michael Keane for useful information on the U.S. welfare system. Financial support from the Netherlands Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment is gratefully acknowledged. Contact the corresponding author, Bas van der Klaauw, at Klaauw@tinbergen.nl. 212Van den Berg et al.

Springer, 2007. 222 pages, 30 illus. €74.95. ISBN 978-3-540-48557-5. The book presents the results of a cross-country study on the effectiveness of active labour market policies. It is based on a report conducted for the European Commission mainly during the year 2005. Researchers

The effect of financial rewards on students' achievement: Evidence from a randomized experiment Leuven, E.; Oosterbeek, H.; van der Klaauw, B. Published in:Journal of the European Economic Association DOI:10.1162/jeea_a_00024Link to publication Citation for published version (APA):Leuven, E., Oosterbeek, H., & van der Klaauw, B. (2010). The effect of financial rewards on students' achievement: Evidence from a randomized experiment. Journal of the European Economic Association, 8(6), 1243-1265. DOI: 10.1162/jeea_a_00024 General rightsIt is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulationsIf you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: http://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. Hessel Oosterbeek University of Amsterdam Bas van der Klaauw VU University AmsterdamAbstract This paper reports on a randomized field experiment in which first-year university students could earn financial rewards for passing all first-year requirements within one year. Financial incentives turn out to have positive effects on achievement of high-ability students, whereas they have a negative impact on achievement of low-ability students. After three years these effects have increased, suggesting dynamic spillovers. The negative effects for less-able students are consistent with results from psychology and behavioral economics showing that external rewards may be detrimental for intrinsic motivation. (JEL: I21, I22, J24) IntroductionThere has recently been increased interest in the effectiveness of financial incentives for students to improve their achievement Lavy 2002, 2009;Dearden et al. 2002;Kremer, Miguel, and Thornton 2004;Angrist, Lang, and Oreopoulos 2009). One reason for this interest is the impression that students often do not exert sufficient study effort. Standard economic theory predicts a positive relation between financial incentives and achievement. Yet insights from behavioral economics and mixed empirical evidence cast doubt on the strength of this relation in each context and for each group of individuals.Camerer and Hogarth (1999) review 74 studies in which subjects were paid zero, small, or large financial rewards for a large variety of tasks. The effects ofThe editor in charge of this paper was Orazio Attanasio. Acknowledgments: This is a revised and extended version of Leuven et al.