Experimental Evidence on the Effects of Early Meetings and Activation

Abstract

We analyze the e¤ects of four randomized experiments involving intensive active labour market policy, conducted in Denmark in 2008. The interventions consisted of early and frequent meetings and activation programmes. The e¤ects are remarkable; frequent meetings between newly unemployed workers and case workers increase employment rates over the next two years by 10%. For men, we …nd evidence of a threat e¤ect of having to participate in early activation programmes. In general, we …nd large di¤erences between men and women, especially in the dynamics of the e¤ects. A cost-bene…t analysis reveals that meetings yield the largest net bene…ts. JEL-Codes: J64, J68

Social experiments of different kinds of counselling for newly unemployed

“…Overall, group meetings display smaller point estimates, and for number of days in unemployment (1st quarter and 1st year) there is no significant impact. The smaller employment effects for group meetings are consistent with the results in previous studies (see, e.g., Maibom et al, 2017). Above we presented evidence showing that vacancy referrals are key in explaining the direct effect of the job search assistance.…”

Does Job Search Assistance Reduce Unemployment? Experimental Evidence on Displacement Effects and Mechanisms

“…Overall, group meetings display smaller point estimates, and for number of days in unemployment (1st quarter and 1st year) there is no significant impact. The smaller employment effects for group meetings are consistent with the results in previous studies (see, e.g., Maibom et al, 2017).…”

The Labor Market Effects of US Reemployment Policy: Lessons from an Analysis of Four Programs during the Great Recession

“…For the most part, European programs are more intensive than U.S. programs (including those examined here), requiring continuous participation in monitoring activities and job counseling, so the incentives of participants to escape program requirements and monitoring effects cannot be distinguished from the benefits of job counseling. One partial exception is Maibom et al (2017), who show that an intensive counseling treatment in Denmark for newly unemployed workers had effects that continued even after program requirements had been satisfied. Another partial exception is Cockx et al (2017), which found that monitoring activities in the Belgian UI system had small positive effects on participants' job-search behavior.…”

“…show that they are effective in reducing average UI spells and benefits collected, but have limited effects on employment and earnings (Meyer, 1995;Decker et al, 2000;Klepinger et al, 2002;Black et al, 2003). Numerous experimental studies of European activation programs -including in the Netherlands (Gorter and Kalb, 1996), Denmark (Graversen and van Ours, 2008;Maibom et al, 2017), France (Behaghel et al, 2012), and Sweden (Hägglund, 2011) -find that these programs often lead to improvements in job-finding rates.…”