Natural and classical experiments in Swedish labour market policy

Transcription

1 Natural and classical experiments in Swedish labour market policy Pathric Hägglund DISSERTATION SERIES 2006:1 Presented at the Department of Economics, Stockholm University

2 The Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation (IFAU) is a research institute under the Swedish Ministry of Industry, Employment and Communications, situated in Uppsala. IFAU s objective is to promote, support and carry out: evaluations of the effects of labour market policies, studies of the functioning of the labour market and evaluations of the labour market effects of measures within the educational system. Besides research, IFAU also works on: spreading knowledge about the activities of the institute through publications, seminars, courses, workshops and conferences; influencing the collection of data and making data easily available to researchers all over the country. IFAU also provides funding for research projects within its areas of interest. The deadline for applications is October 1 each year. Since the researchers at IFAU are mainly economists, researchers from other disciplines are encouraged to apply for funding. IFAU is run by a Director-General. The authority has a traditional board, consisting of a chairman, the Director-General and eight other members. The tasks of the board are, among other things, to make decisions about external grants and give its views on the activities at IFAU. A reference group including representatives for employers and employees as well as the ministries and authorities concerned is also connected to the institute. Postal address: P.O. Box 513, Uppsala Visiting address: Kyrkogårdsgatan 6, Uppsala Phone: Fax: ifau@ifau.uu.se This doctoral dissertation was defended for the degree of Doctor in Philosophy at the Department of Economics, Stockholm University, January 20, The first essay is a revised version of research previously published by IFAU as Working Paper 2000:4. The third essay has been published by IFAU as Working Paper 2006:2. ISSN

3 NATURAL AND CLASSICAL EXPERIMENTS IN SWEDISH LABOUR MARKET POLICY Fil. lic. Pathric Hägglund Swedish Institute for Social Research Doctoral dissertation Department of Economics Stockholm 2006 (pp. 142) Stockholm University ISBN S Stockholm ISSN ABSTRACT Effects of Changes in the Unemployment Insurance Eligibility Requirements on Job Duration Swedish Evidence This paper investigates the impact of the unemployment insurance (UI) entrance requirement on employment duration among earlier unemployed in Sweden. I exploit changes in the rule taking place in 1994 and 1997 to study behavioural adjustments in the timing of job separation between 1992, 1996, and Performing across-year analyses, I find evidence of clustering of job exits at the time of UI qualification. By using predicted hazard rates for each week, I calculate an approximate 2.9-week extension in average employment duration between 1996 and 1998 due to the 5-week prolonging of the entrance requirement. Job-search Assistance Using the Internet Experiences from a Swedish Randomised Experiment This paper reports the experience from a randomised experiment offering voluntary job-search assistance on the Internet to job seekers at Swedish public employment offices. The purpose is to, i) investigate to what extent the evaluation design manages to avoid common difficulties in experimental evaluation, ii) assess the effect of the programme on the employment outcome, and iii) use the nonbiased experimental results as a benchmark evaluating the performance of frequent nonexperimental estimators. I find that the evaluation design successfully circumvents inherent difficulties in the experimental approach, such as ethical concerns, bureaucratic behaviour and randomisation bias. However, the voluntariness of the programme caused severe compliance problems in terms of both no-shows and dropouts. This is accounted for by analysing the effect of the intent-to-treat (the policy parameter of most interest), which is close to zero. Studying the effects of various doses of actual treatment, using an nonexperimental instrumental variable model, I fail to reject the hypothesis of a zero programme effect. Finally, a methodological comparison suggests that standard nonexperimental techniques succeed in reproducing the nonbiased experimental results.

4 Are there Pre-programme Effects of Swedish Active Labour Market Policies Evidence from Three Randomised Experiments This paper takes advantage of unique experimental data from three demonstration programmes in 2004 to investigate pre-programme incentive effects of active placement efforts at the employment offices in Sweden. The exit rate from unemployment between referral to and start of the programme services is compared between UI eligible experiment and control group members. The results are mixed. In one of the experiments, targeted towards a broad group of UI receivers, arranged job-search activities in groups combined with increased monitoring of job-search efforts generated a 38 per cent increase in the escape rate from unemployment in the weeks leading up to programme start. This translates into an almost two-week reduction of the ongoing UI spell. Referrals to increased monitoring alone did not have the same effect on exit behaviour. In the other two experiments, targeted towards youth and highly educated respectively, referrals to active placement efforts had no effect on the pre-programme outflow.

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151 Publication series published by the Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation (IFAU) latest issues Rapporter/Reports 2006:1 Zenou Yves, Olof Åslund & John Östh Hur viktig är närheten till jobb för chanserna på arbetsmarknaden? 2006:2 Mörk Eva, Linus Lindqvist & Daniela Lundin Påverkar maxtaxan inom barnomsorgen hur mycket föräldrar arbetar? 2006:3 Hägglund Pathric Anvisningseffekter finns dom? Resultat från tre arbetsmarknadspolitiska experiment 2006:4 Hägglund Pathric A description of three randomised experiments in Swedish labour market policy 2006:5 Forslund Anders & Oskar Nordström Skans (Hur) hjälps ungdomar av arbetsmarknadspolitiska program för unga? Working Papers 2006:1 Åslund Olof, John Östh & Yves Zenou How important is access to jobs? Old question improved answer 2006:2 Hägglund Pathric Are there pre-programme effects of Swedish active labour market policies? Evidence from three randomised experiments 2006:3 Johansson Per Using internal replication to establish a treatment effect 2006:4 Edin Per-Anders & Jonas Lagerström Blind dates: quasi-experimental evidence on discrimination 2006:5 Öster Anna Parental unemployment and children s school performance 2006:6 Forslund Anders & Oskar Nordström Skans Swedish youth labour market policies revisited Dissertation Series 2003:1 Andersson Fredrik Causes and labor market consequences of producer heterogeneity 2003:2 Ekström Erika Essays on inequality and education 2005:1 Nilsson Anna Indirect effects of unemployment and low earnings: crime and children s school performance 2006:1 Hägglund Pathric Natural and classical experiments in Swedish labour market policy