The Effectiveness of Active Labor Market Policies: A Meta‐analysis

Abstract

Abstract. This paper provides a meta-analysis of microeconometric evaluation studies on the effectiveness of active labor market policies. The analysis is built upon a systematically assembled data set of causal impact estimates from 57 experimental and quasi-experimental studies, providing 654 estimates published between January 1990 and December 2017. We distinguish between the short and longer term impacts in our analysis; at 6, 12, 24, and 36 months after program start. After correcting for publication bias and country-specific macroeconomic characteristics, subsidized labor and public employment programs have negative short-term impacts, which gradually turn positive in the longer run. Schemes with enhanced services including job-search assistance and training programs do not have these negative short-term effects, and stay positive from 6 until 36 months after program start.

The Effects of Human Capital Interventions on Entrepreneurial Performance in Industrialized Countries

“…We were unable to examine this as most studies did not report intervention intensity or duration, although the single most intense intervention did yield the largest effect. Another explanation is a lock-in effect (Card et al, 2010;Vooren et al, 2019). Participants reduce their entrepreneurial activity during an intervention, which may have negative short-term effects on entrepreneurial performance.…”

“…Since they are not comparable across studies, we convert them into a second set of standardized estimates. The conversion is initially conducted using Cohen's d estimator (1969), which is widely used in psychology and education studies and more recently also in economics (e.g., Cho and Honorati, 2014;Vooren et al, 2019). Cohen's d gives the mean difference in entrepreneurial performance between treatment and control groups, expressed in (pooled) standard deviations rather than raw scores.…”

“…Interventions are then necessary to correct this market failure. When such interventions affect large populations, they are likely to bring about changes in the general labor market equilibrium (Heckman et al, 1999;Vooren et al, 2019). The interventions under review tend to have relatively small groups of participants, reducing the need for general equilibrium models.…”

A JobBridge to nowhere: The National Internship Scheme as fast policy leading to bad policy

“…Martin (2015, p. 29) finds that ALMPs are generally effective at finding jobs for the unemployed, but many countries only 'pay lip service' to labour activation in order to artificially manipulate the unemployment numbers and institute welfare-to-work schemes. In a recent study, Vooren et al (2018) have shown that ALMPs in general have negative impacts over the short term, with a longer-term net benefit for society and the participant. But ALMPs that have considerable training elements will avoid this initial negative impact (Vooren et al, 2018, p. 15).…”

Sustainability of Employment Using the Tools of Active Labor Market Policy

“…In Slovakia, it is primarily about financing activation work. Several authors note that the activation work is the least effective [13]. In 2016, Sweden wanted to focus on the investment related to the overcoming of the long-term unemployment, the people with disabilities that have a decreased ability to work, faster deployment of newcomers, a better income in the whole country, support of the employment of young people, modern working life [10], [11].…”