which fiscal multipliers are regime dependent a meta regression analysis we analyse whether estimated multiplier effects are systematically higher if the economy suffers a downturn for that purpose we conduct a meta regression analysis on a unique data set of 98 empirical studies with more than 1800 observations on multiplier effects and control for regime dependence of the multiplier we find that spending multipliers are much higher by about 0 7 0 9 units during a downturn tax multipliers are not sensitive to the economic regime and generally lower than spending multipliers finally for all spending categories other than government consumption the multiplier significantly exceeds one during downturns

what have we learned from the illinois reemployment bonus experiment this article analyzes an experimental program that offered payments to unemployment insurance ui recipients who found a job quickly the experiment provided exogenous differences in individual incentives which i use to test labor supply and search theories of unemployment i examine predictions about the timing of exits from unemployment and the effect of the fixed amount bonus on different wage level groups i also argue that the experimental evidence does not show the desirability of a permanent program a permanent program would sharply increase the compensation for short ui spells likely increasing the claims rate and possibly increasing unemployment

quick job entry or long term human capital development the dynamic effects of alternative training schemes this study evaluates and compares the eectiveness of two alternative training schemes for the unemployed short job search oriented training and long human capital oriented training we investigate the impact dynamics of these pro grams considering both unemployment and employment duration our analysis uses a rich administrative longitudinal data set for germany where both programs were implemented at the same time our estimation strategy flexibly accounts for dy namic selection on observables and unobservables as well as heterogeneous treatment eects the results indicate that short term training schemes can be an eective tool to reduce unemployment in the long run in particular if participation occurs early during unemployment long term training schemes increase the average du ration of employment spells more strongly than short term training however they increase the expected unemployment duration if they are started early during un employment this negative short run impact of long term training is an important driver of its overall eectiveness

assessing the effects of reemployment bonuses on job search a regression discontinuity approach abstract this study examines the impacts of reemployment bonuses that is the incentive payments to unemployment insurance ui recipients who find a job within a specified period using korean data a sharp discontinuity in treatment assignment at age 55 identifies the effect of increased reemployment bonuses on unemployment duration and on subsequent job duration the results indicate that increases in the reemployment bonus boost the job finding hazards of ui claimants early in their unemployment spells during the bonus qualification period and significantly shorten the duration of ui spells by 0 16 to 0 42 months 0 68 to 1 82 weeks in addition employment stability is not significantly affected by an increased bonus which implies no negative influence of the bonus on subsequent job match quality the simulated estimates show that the increase in tax revenue and the decrease in ui benefit payment caused by the behavioral response of ui recipients are large enough to offset the increased cost of the reemployment bonus

multinationals profit response to tax differentials effect size and shifting channels this paper provides a quantitative review of the empirical literature on profit shifting behavior of multinational firms we synthesize the evidence from 25 studies and find a substantial response of profit measures to international tax rate differentials accounting for misspecification biases by means of meta regressions we predict a tax semi elasticity of subsidiary pre tax profits of about 0 8 moreover we disentangle the tax response by means of financial planning from the transfer pricing and licensing channel our results suggest that transfer pricing and licensing are the dominant profit shifting channel

job search and hyperbolic discounting structural estimation and policy evaluation this paper estimates the structural parameters of a job search model with hyperbolic discounting and endogenous search effort it estimates quantitatively the degree of hyperbolic discounting and assesses its implications for the impact of various policy interventions aimed at reducing unemployment the model is estimated using data on unemployment spells and accepted wages from the national longitudinal survey of youth nlsy the likelihood function explicitly incorporates all the restrictions implied by the optimal dynamic programming solution to the model both observed and unobserved heterogeneity are accounted for the results point to a substantial degree of hyperbolic discounting especially for low and medium wage workers the structural estimates are also used to evaluate alternative policy interventions for the unemployed estimates based on a model with exponential discounting may lead to biased inference on the economic impact of policies jel c6 c73 d90 j64 j68

punitive sanctions and the transition rate from welfare to work 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

lessons from the u s unemployment insurance experiments recent social experiments have evaluated two reforms of the unemployment insurance ui system reemployment bonuses and job search programs the bonus experiments show that economic incentives affect the length of ui receipt and provide weak evidence that an earlier return to work does not decrease earnings the experiments do not show the favorability of a permanent bonus program as they ignore its effect on the number of the claimants the job search experiments test several more promising reforms nearly all of the combinations of services and increased enforcement reduce ui receipt and have favorable cost benefit analyses earnings often increase though the estimates are imprecise

carrot and stick how reemployment bonuses and benefit sanctions affect exit rates from welfare summary to increase the exit from welfare benefit recipients in the municipality of rotterdam were exposed to various financial incentives once their benefit spell exceeded one year welfare recipients were entitled to a re employment bonus if they found a job that lasted at least 6 months however they could also be punished for noncompliance with eligibility requirements and face a sanction i e a temporary reduction of their benefits we find that the financial sticks in the form of benefit sanctions were effective in stimulating the exit from welfare while the financial carrots in the form of re employment bonuses were not copyright 2011 john wiley sons ltd

job search and impatience workers who are more impatient search less intensively and set lower reservation wages the effect of impatience on exit rates from unemployment is therefore unclear if agents have exponential time preferences the reservation wage effect dominates for sufficiently patient individuals so increases in impatience lead to higher exit rates the opposite is true for agents with hyperbolic time preferences using two large longitudinal data sets we find that impatience measures are negatively correlated with search effort and the unemployment exit rate and are orthogonal to reservation wages impatience substantially affects outcomes in the direction predicted by the hyperbolic model

lasting or latent scars swedish evidence on the long term effects of job displacement recently improved swedish register data have made it possible to remedy many weaknesses of previous research on displaced workers using linked employer employee data we identify all workers displaced in 1987 due to an establishment closure and follow them over both a predisplacement period of 4 years and a postdisplacement period stretching until 1999 we find that the displaced workers suffer both earnings losses and worsened labor market position not only during a transitory period of adjustment but also in the longer run these longer run effects seem to be driven by an increased sensitivity to subsequent macroeconomic shocks

the british low wage sector and the employment prospects of the unemployed abstractare low wages a way for the unemployed to switch to higher paying jobs using data from the british household panel survey the labour market dynamics of unemployed low paid and higher paid employed men are analysed moreover the respective un employment duration and occupational skill level are accounted for results show that in general low wages significantly reduce the risk of future unemployment and increase the chances of ascending the salary ladder especially in the case of long term unemployment 360 days furthermore the occupational skill level has a substantial influence on the upward mobility of low paid jobs individuals working in the initial period in a low paid and higher skilled occupation have on average an 11 percentage points higher probability of entering higher pay compared to when working in a low paid and low skilled occupation

estimating the effects of a time limited earnings subsidy for welfare leavers in the self sufficiency project ssp welfare demonstration members of a randomly assigned treatment group could receive a subsidy for full time work the subsidy was available for 3 years but only to people who began working full time within 12 months of random assignment a simple optimizing model suggests that the eligibility rules created an establishment incentive to find a job and leave welfare within a year of random assignment and an entitlement incentive to choose work over welfare once eligibility was established building on this insight we develop an econometric model of welfare participation that allows us to separate the two effects and estimate the impact of the earnings subsidy on welfare entry and exit rates among those who achieved eligibility the combination of the two incentives explains the time profile of the experimental impacts which peaked 15 months after random assignment and faded relatively quickly our findings suggest that about half of the peak impact of ssp was attributable to the establishment incentive despite the extra work effort generated by ssp the program had no lasting impact on wages and little or no long run effect on welfare participation

the effect of unemployment insurance sanctions on the transition rate from unemployment to employment sanctions or punitive benefits reductions are increasingly used as a tool to enforce compliance of unemployment insurance claimants with search requirements this article analyses sanctions using a unique administrative data set of individuals who started collecting unemployment insurance in the netherlands in 1992 after correction for selectivity in the imposition of sanctions we find that sanctions substantially raise individual re employment rates

can training and employment subsidies combat european unemployment active policy evaluation problems methods and results european countries with poorly performing labour markets and labour market institutions conducive to high unemployment also feature considerable expenditures on active labour market policy and such policies are emphasized by the european union s employment strategy however the practice of these programmes evaluation is much less well developed in europe than in the united states we outline key issues facing such evaluation and offer a review and formal assessment of european evaluation studies over the last three decades we find that programme effects are very heterogeneous across types of interventions and target groups that training and job search assistance can be effective and that the young among the unemployed are typically difficult to assist jochen kluve and christoph m schmidt

job search requirements effort provision and labor market outcomes abstract how effective are effort targets this paper provides novel evidence on the effects of job search requirements on effort provision and labor market outcomes based on large scale register data we estimate the returns to required job search effort instrumenting individual requirements with caseworker stringency identification is ensured by the conditional random assignment of job seekers to caseworkers we find that the duration of un and non employment both decrease by 3 if the requirement increases by one monthly application when instrumenting actual applications with caseworker stringency an additionally provided monthly application decreases the length of spells by 4 in line with theory we further find that the effect of required effort decreases in the individual s voluntary effort finally the requirement level causes small negative effects on job stability reducing the duration of re employment spells by 0 3 per required application we find a zero effect on re employment wages

discretionary policy and multiple equilibria in lq re models we study discretionary equilibria in dynamic linear quadratic rational expectations models in contrast to the assumptions that pervade this literature we show that these models do have multiple equilibria in some situations we demonstrate the existence of multiple discretionary equilibria by example we investigate general properties of discretionary equilibria and discuss implications for numerical algorithms

do benefit cuts boost job finding swedish evidence from the 1990s in june 1995 the swedish parliament decided to cut the replacement rate in unemployment insurance from 80 percent to 75 percent a change that took effect on january 1 1996 this paper examines h

time inconsistency and welfare program participation evidence from the nlsy we empirically implement a dynamic structural model of labor supply and welfare program participation for agents with potentially time inconsistent preferences using panel data on the choices of single women with children from the nlsy 1979 we provide estimates of the degree of time inconsistency and of its influence on the welfare take up decision with these estimates we conduct counterfactual experiments to quantify the utility loss stemming from the inability to commit to future decisions and the potential utility gains from commitment mechanisms such as welfare time limits and work requirements

productivity gains from unemployment insurance this paper argues that unemployment insurance increases labor productivity by encouraging workers to seek higher productivity jobs and by encouraging rms to create those jobs we use a quantitative model to investigate whether this eect is comparable in magnitude to the standard moral hazard eects of unemployment insurance our model economy captures the behavior of the u s labor market for high school graduates quite well with unemployment insurance more generous than the current u s level unemployment would increase by a magnitude similar to the micro estimates but because the composition of jobs also changes total output and welfare would increase as well

the short and long run impacts of financial crises on youth unemployment in oecd countries abstractthe impact of financial crises on the youth unemployment rate yur compared to the total unemployment rate ur is estimated for a panel of oecd countries over the period 1981 2009 using bias corrected dynamic panel data estimators of short and long run coefficients both yur and ur are found highly persistent also short and long run effects of financial crises on yur are significantly large respectively some 1 9 and 1 5 1 7 times higher than the short and long run effects on ur similar results are found for the unemployment impacts of gdp growth lagged 1 year and institutional variables these results are robust to various dynamic specifications

does privatisation of vocational rehabilitation improve labour market opportunities evidence from a field experiment in sweden this paper analyses if privatisation of vocational rehabilitation can improve labour market opportunities for individuals on long term sickness absence we use a field experiment performed by the p

do geographical mobility requirements for the unemployed affect their exit rate to work evidence from a policy change a policy change tightened job search requirements regarding geographical mobility for unemployment insurance benefit recipients in germany those affected by the policy change were individuals without family ties and whose reemployment prospects were low in their home labor market region the author finds that after one year the policy change led to a 4 6 percentage point increase in employment among women without children who lived in regions with relatively high unemployment women responded to the policy change by taking up jobs in their home labor market region as well as outside of that region the author does not find any effects of the tightened mobility requirements for men

r d intensity and the effective tax rate a meta regression analysis we apply meta regression techniques to provide a quantitative review of the empirical literature on how research and development r d expenses affect the effective tax rate etr r d expenses relate to a well accepted profit shifting channel strategic placement of intellectual property within a multinational entity using a unique hand collected data set we add a new perspective to the current base erosion and profit shifting beps state of research and debate in three ways first observing that primary studies report mixed evidence on how r d expenses affect etr we provide a consensus estimate for this effect second we consider this effect in more detail by separating a tax accounting effect and a profit shifting effect which to our knowledge has not yet been investigated we detect that one third of the r d effect on the etr is due to the tax accounting effect and could be mitigated via book tax conformity we further find that 10 of the profit shifting effect can be traced back to r d tax credits third our meta regression reveals factors that are possible sources of variation and bias in previous empirical studies

successful in the long run a meta regression analysis of persistent firm profits we study the profit persistence literature by applying meta regression analysis mra to a set of 36 empirical papers which analyze the persistence of abnormal firm profits over time the analyzed literature provides evidence for a mediocre degree of persistence in abnormal profits an initial analysis of the distribution of reported profit persistence estimates reveals some degree of excess variation this points toward publication bias that favors significant results independent of their algebraic sign the mra however reveals that publication bias is particularly favoring results that indicate profit persistence and thus contradict the neoclassical model of perfect competition moreover the mra enables to control for heterogeneity driven by the study design we find that the analyzed country developing vs developed the applied econometric approach as well as the analyzed period of time are significant drivers of heterogeneity in reported persistence estimates

testing and valuing dynamic correlations for asset allocation we evaluate alternative models of variances and correlations with an economic loss function we construct portfolios to minimize predicted variance subject to a required return it is shown that the realized volatility is smallest for the correctly specified covariance matrix for any vector of expected returns a test of relative performance of two covariance matrices is based on work of diebold and mariano the method is applied to stocks and bonds and then to highly correlated assets on average dynamically correct correlations are worth around 60 basis points in annualized terms but on some days they may be worth hundreds

evaluating pooled evidence from the reemployment bonus experiments social experiments conducted in pennsylvania and washington tested the effect of offering unemployment insurance ui claimants a cash bonus for rapid reemployment this paper combines data from the two experiments and uses a consistent framework to evaluate the experiments and determine with greater certainty the extent to which a reemployment bonus can affect economic outcomes bonus offers in each of the experiments generated statistically significant but relatively modest reductions in ui receipt since the estimated impacts on ui receipt were modest the reemployment bonuses did not generate the ui savings necessary to pay for administering and paying the bonuses hence contrary to earlier findings from a bonus experiment conducted in illinois findings from the pennsylvania and washington experiments strongly suggest that a reemployment bonus is not a cost effective method of speeding the reemployment of ui claimants

labor market effects of unemployment insurance design with the emergence of the great recession unemployment insurance ui is once again at the heart of the policy debate in this paper we review the recent theoretical and empirical evidence on the labor market effects of ui design we also discuss policy issues related to ui design including the structure of benefits the role of liquidity constraints and the pros and cons of a ui system in which the generosity of ui benefits is varying over the business cycle finally we identify potential areas of future research

estimating the economic return to educational levels using data on twins this paper relaxes some restrictions of previous twin based estimates of the effects of education on earnings first it estimates the earnings premiums associated with different educational levels second it estimates a piecewise linear relationship between the natural logarithm of annual earnings and years of schooling third the measurement error corrections are based on a less restrictive non classical measurement error model the estimation strategy implies that ability bias can be investigated separately in different parts of the educational distribution the linear relationship between the logarithm of annual earnings and years of schooling is rejected furthermore the results in the sample of identical mz twins indicated both that the ability bias could be of different signs and of different magnitudes in different parts of the educational distribution the twin based estimates in the sample of fraternal dz twins did not display any marked differences as compared to the cross sectional estimates finally the results indicated that the error corrected twin based estimates of the average return to years of schooling that rely on a classical measurement error model are upwards biased by approximately 30 copyright 2004 john wiley sons ltd

retraining for the unemployed and the quality of the job match in germany retraining is an important measure in active labour market policy providing unemployed individuals with extensive vocational training using administrative data we show that retrainin

experimental evidence on the effects of early meetings and activation we analyze the effects of four randomized social experiments involving early and intensive active labour market policy conducted in denmark in 2008 the experiments entailed different combinations of early and intensive treatment in terms of meetings and active labour market programmes we find that frequent meetings between newly unemployed workers and case workers can increase employment rates over the next two years by up to 10 weeks the effects continue to grow over the whole 4 year horizon studied for men we find evidence of a threat effect of having to participate in early active labour market programmes while no such effect is found for women we conduct a cost benefit analysis of each ofthe four experiments and find that meetings yield the largest net benefits

what works a meta analysis of recent active labor market program evaluations we summarize the estimates from over 200 recent studies of active labor market programs we classify the estimates by type of program and participant group and distinguish between three different post program time horizons using regression models for the estimated program effect for studies that model the probability of employment and for the sign and significance of the estimated effect for all the studies in our sample we conclude that 1 average impacts are close to zero in the short run but become more positive 2 3 years after completion of the program 2 the time profile of impacts varies by type of program with larger average gains for programs that emphasize human capital accumulation 3 there is systematic heterogeneity across participant groups with larger impacts for females and participants who enter from long term unemployment 4 active labor market programs are more likely to show positive impacts in a recession

the effect of benefit sanctions on the duration of unemployment this paper investigates the effectiveness of unemployment benefit sanctions in reducing unemployment duration swiss data on benefit sanctions allow us to separate the effect of a warning that a person is not complying with eligibility requirements from the effect of the actual enforcement of a benefit sanction moreover public employment services are given substantial leeway in setting the monitoring intensity results indicate that both warning and enforcement have a positive effect on the exit rate out of unemployment and that increasing the monitoring intensity reduces the duration of unemployment of the nonsanctioned jel j64 j65 j68

is the threat of reemployment services more effective than the services themselves evidence from random assignment in the ui system we examine the effect of the worker profiling and reemployment services system this program profiles unemployment insurance ui claimants to determine their probability of benefit exhaustion and then provides mandatory employment and training services to claimants with high predicted probabilities using a unique experimental design we estimate that the program reduces mean weeks of ui benefit receipt by about 2 2 weeks reduces mean ui benefits received by about 143 ana increases subsequent earnings by over 1 050 most of the effect results from a sharp increase in early ui exits in the treatment group relative to the control group jel j650

evaluating the econometric evaluations of training programs with experimental data this paper takes the results of an employment and training program thatwas run as a field experiment in which the participants were randomlyassigned into a treatment or a control group and compares these results to the estimates that might have been produced by an econometrician who evaluated the program using the same econometric procedures that have been used in the program evaluation literature this comparison shows that many of these econometric procedures fail toreplicate the experimentally determined results and suggests that researchers should be aware of the potential for specification errorsin other nonexperimental evaluations copyright 1986 by american economic association

monitoring job offer decisions punishments exit to work and job quality unemployment insurance systems include the monitoring of unemployed workers and punitive sanctions if job search requirements are violated we analyze the causal effect of sanctions on the ensuing job quality notably on wages and occupational level we use swedish data and estimate duration models dealing with selection on unobservables we also develop a theoretical job search model that monitors job offer rejection versus job search effort the empirical results show that after a sanction the wage rate is lower and individuals move more often to a part time job and a lower occupational level incurring human capital losses

an evaluation of the swedish system of active labour market programmes in the 1990s we investigate the presence of short and long term effects from joining a swedish labor market program vis a vis more intense job search in open unemployment overall the impact of the program system is found to have been mixed joining a program has increased employment rates among participants a result robust to a misclassification problem in the data on the other hand it has also allowed participants to remain significantly longer on unemployment benefits and more generally in the unemployment system this being particularly the case for those entitled individuals entering a program around the time of their unemployment benefits exhaustion

the own wage elasticity of labor demand a meta regression analysis firms labor demand responses to wage changes are of key interest in empirical research and policy analysis however despite extensive research estimates of labor demand elasticities remain subject to considerable heterogeneity in this paper we conduct a comprehensive meta regression analysis to re assess the empirical literature on labor demand elasticities building on 942 elasticity estimates from 105 different studies we identify sources of variation in the absolute value of this elasticity heterogeneity due to the theoretical and empirical specification of the labor demand model different datasets used or sectors and countries considered explains more than 80 of the variation in the estimates we further find substantial evidence for the presence of publication selection bias as estimates of the own wage elasticity of labor demand are upwardly inflated

optimal unemployment insurance with human capital depreciation and duration dependence this paper studies the effect of human capital depreciation and duration dependence on the design of an optimal unemployment insurance ui scheme our results partially confirm those obtained in most previous studies benefits should decrease with unemployment duration the optimal program also generates two main novel features which are not present in stationary models first if human capital depreciates rapidly enough during unemployment ui transfers are bounded below by a minimal assistance level that arises endogenously in the efficient program second we study the optimality of imposing a history contingent wage tax after reemployment our numerical simulations based on the spanish and us economies show that the wage tax should decrease with the length of worker s previous unemployment spell and become a wage subsidy for long term unemployed workers as a by product of our study we develop a systematic approach suitable for studying recursively a wide range of dynamic moral hazard problems and other models with similar characteristics

career technical education and labor market outcomes evidence from california community colleges career technical education cte programs at community colleges are increasingly seen as an attractive alternative to four year colleges yet little systematic evidence exists on the returns to specific certificates and degrees we estimate returns to cte programs using administrative data from the california community college system linked to earnings records we employ estimation approaches including individual fixed effects and individual specific trends and find average returns to cte certificate and degrees that range from 14 to 45 percent the largest returns are for programs in the healthcare sector estimated returns in non health related programs range from 15 to 23 percent end page 986 abstract from author

cost effectiveness of targeted reemployment bonuses targeting reemployment bonus offers to unemployment insurance ui claimants identified as most likely to exhaust benefits is estimated to reduce benefit payments we show that targeting bonus offers with profiling models similar to those in state worker profiling and reemployment services systems can improve cost effectiveness since estimated average benefit payments do not steadily decline as the eligibility screen is gradually tightened we find that narrow targeting is not optimal the best candidate is a low bonus amount with a long qualification period targeted to the half of profiled claimants most likely to exhaust their ui benefit entitlement

assessing the employment effects of vocational training using a one factor model matching estimators use observed variables to adjust for differences between groups to eliminate sample selection bias when minimum relevant information is not available matching estimates are biased if access to data on usually unobserved factors that determine the selection process is unavailable other estimators should be used this study advocates the one factor control function estimator that allows for unobserved heterogeneity with factor loading technique treatment effects of vocational training in sweden are estimated with mean and distributional parameters and then compared with matching estimates the results indicate that unobservables slightly increase the treatment effect for those treated

the impact of being offered and receiving classroom training on the employment histories of disadvantaged women evidence from experimental data we address two questions using experimental data on disadvantaged women first what is the impact of being offered jtpa classroom training on the duration of unemployment and employment second what is the effect of actually participating in this training on the length of such spells belonging to the treatment group shortens unemployment spells but has no effect on employment spells actually participating in training has a larger positive effect on the exit rate from unemployment than the effect of simply being a member of the treatment group ignoring the endogeneity of actual training in estimation substantially underestimates its effect

the spike at benefit exhaustion leaving the unemployment system or starting a new job in this paper we review the literature on the spike in unemployment exit rates around benefit exhaustion and present new evidence based on administrative data for a large sample of job losers in austria we find that the way unemployment spells are measured has a large effect on the magnitude of the spike at exhaustion both in existing studies and in our austrian data spikes are typically much smaller when spell length is defined by the time to next job than when it is defined by the time spent on the unemployment system in austria the exit rate from registered unemployment rises by over 200 at the expiration of benefits while the hazard rate of re employment rises by only 20 the difference between the two measures arises because many individuals leave the unemployment register immediately after their benefits expire without returning to work the modest spike in re employment rates implies that most job seekers do not wait until their ui benefits are exhausted to return to work fewer than 1 of jobless spells have an ending date that is manipulated to coincide with the expiration of ui benefits this abstract was borrowed from another version of this item

regional discontinuities and the effectiveness of further training subsidies for low skilled employees the author analyzes the effects of further training subsidies for low skilled employees on individual labor market outcomes in germany using detailed administrative data the author exploits cross

looking beyond the bridge the effect of temporary agency employment on labor market outcomes abstract we perform a comprehensive analysis of the stepping stone effect of temporary agency employment on unemployed workers using the timing of events approach we investigate not only whether agency employment is a bridge into regular employment but also its effect on post unemployment wages and job stability for unemployed danish workers we find evidence of large positive treatment effects particularly for immigrants and for individuals considered less employable our results show that agency employment is in tendency effective in tight labor markets where firms use agency employment primarily to screen potential candidates for regular posts finally our results suggest that agency employment may improve subsequent match quality in terms of wages

does job loss shorten life this paper examines the impact of job loss on overall and cause specific mortality using linked employer employee data we identified the workers displaced due to all establishment closures in sweden in 1987 and 1988 hence we have extended the case study approach which has dominated the plant closure literature the overall mortality risk among men increased by 44 percent during the first four years following job loss while there was no impact on either female overall mortality or in the longer run for both sexes however there was an about twofold short run increase in suicides and alcohol related mortality

vocational training programs and youth labor market outcomes evidence from nepal abstract lack of skills is arguably one of the most important determinants of high levels of unemployment and poverty in response policymakers often initiate vocational training programs in effort to enhance skill formation among the youth using a regression discontinuity design we examine a large youth training intervention in nepal we find twelve months after the start of the training program that the intervention generated an increase in non farm employment of 10 percentage points itt estimates and up to 31 percentage points for program compliers late estimates we also detect sizeable gains in monthly earnings women who start self employment activities inside their homes largely drive these impacts we argue that low baseline educational levels and non farm employment levels and nepal s social and cultural norms towards women drive our large program impacts our results suggest that the program enables otherwise underemployed women to earn an income while staying at home close to household errands and in line with the socio cultural norms that prevent them from taking up employment outside the house

inflation targeting genuine effects or publication selection bias abstract this paper uses a meta regression analysis mra to evaluate the impact of publication selection bias as for the macroeconomic effects of inflation targeting it a popular approach to implementing monetary policy documented in the existing literature using 8 059 point estimates from 113 studies we show that a significant part of the documented positive effects of it on inflation and to some extent output growth volatility is in fact due to publication selection bias in particular results pointing to lower inflation volatility and higher real gdp growth tend to be favored by researchers as well as those pointing to statistically significant macroeconomic effects however even after controlling for these two types of biases we find it to be correlated with lower inflation and higher real gdp growth differently the evidence on the it inflation volatility relationship is found to be less clear

employment and earnings effects of awarding training vouchers in germany participation in intensive training programs for the unemployed in germany is allocated by awarding training vouchers using rich administrative data for all vouchers and actual program participation the authors provide first estimates of the short run and long run employment and earnings effects of receiving a training voucher award based on a selection on observables assumption the results imply that after the award voucher recipients experience long periods of lower labor market success compared to had they not received training vouchers small positive employment effects and no gains in earnings were observed four to seven years after the receipt of the voucher award in addition the findings suggest stronger positive effects both for all low skilled individuals who were awarded and redeemed a voucher and for low skilled and medium skilled individuals who chose to take degree courses than for higher skilled recipients

which agglomeration externalities matter most and why this paper revisits the ongoing discussion on the importance of agglomeration externalities specifically specialization diversity and competition effects that may contribute to innovation productivity and urban employment growth previous meta analyses suggested that the evidence on agglomeration externalities is strongly context specific expanding an earlier analysis of 31 articles we seek to draw in this paper more robust conclusions by means of the statistical evidence for agglomeration externalities presented in 73 scientific articles all building on the seminal work of glaeser et al 1992 our results confirm that the heterogeneity among studies is huge and can only be partially accounted for by means of an ordered probit analysis additionally some evidence of publication bias is found we conclude that the conventional lines of inquiry in this literature may now have reached strongly diminishing returns new lines of inquiry using rich micro level data on firms and workers dynamic general equilibrium models at the macro level more attention for spatial and temporal variation in the impacts of agglomeration and further investigations into the spatial scope of externalities are promising avenues for further research that can enhance our understanding of how agglomeration externalities continue to fuel our increasingly urbanized world

time varying effects of recall expectation a reemployment bonus and job counseling on unemployment durations a simple search model that includes the possibility of recall provides predictions as to the changing effects of recall expectations a bonus offer and job counseling on new job finding rates over time using data from the new jersey unemployment insurance reemployment demonstration project njuirdp i find evidence for an initial positive effect of the bonus offer which diminishes over time new job finding rates are found to be negatively affected by higher initial recall expectations this effect also diminishes over time and evidence suggests that job counseling is successful in speeding up this process

the effect of sanctions on exit from unemployment evidence from denmark this paper investigates the effect of sanctions of unemployment insurance benefits on the exit rate from unemployment for a sample of danish unemployed the findings are that even moderate sanctions have rather large effects for both males and females the exit rate increases by more than 100 following an imposition of a sanction the paper exploits a rather large sample to elaborate on the basic findings it is shown that the effect of sanctions wears out after around three months and that some groups of unemployed are more responsive to sanctions than others

the effects of human capital interventions on entrepreneurial performance in industrialized countries this paper provides a systematic review of studies on the effects of human capital interventions on entrepreneurial performance in industrialized countries we identify 21 experimental and quasi experimental studies published before september 2018 these studies examine the effects of business training formal education and entrepreneurship education their performance outcomes include firm profits firm size and entrepreneurial earnings the main finding across these studies is that these interventions do not have statistically significant effects formal education is the only exception showing positive effects on firm profits and entrepreneurial earnings yet these effects are small in magnitude evidence is inconclusive regarding effect duration these findings stand in stark contrast to correlational studies which tend to find large positive correlations between human capital interventions and entrepreneurial performance we therefore conclude that correlational studies tend to overestimate the benefits of human capital interventions moreover our estimates show that the interventions are associated with moderately low additionality

volatility related exchange traded assets an econometric investigation we develop a theoretical framework for covariance stationary but persistent positively valued processes which combines a semi nonparametric expansion of the gamma distribution with a component version of the multiplicative error model our conditional mean assumption allows for slow possibly nonmonotonic mean reversion while our distribution assumption provides more flexibility than a traditional laguerre expansion while preserving positivity of the density we apply our framework to a dynamic portfolio allocation for exchange traded notes tracking short and mid term vix futures indices which are increasingly popular but risky financial instruments we show the superior performance of the strategies based on our econometric model

a microeconometric evaluation of the active labour market policy in switzerland in the second part of the 1990 s switzerland conducted an ambitious active labour market policy almp encompassing a wide variety of programmes we evaluate the effects of these programmes on the individual employment probability of potential participants our econometric analysis uses unusually informative data origi nating from administrative unemployment and social security records we apply a matching es timator adapted for the case of multiple programmes we find substantial positive effects for one particular programme that is a unique feature of the swiss almp it consists of a wage subsidy for temporary jobs in the regular labour market that would otherwise not be taken up by the unemployed we also find large negative effects for traditional employment programmes oper ated in sheltered labour markets for training courses the results are mixed doi 10 1111 1468 0297 00072 download internet appendix pdf 2 590 kb

a non structural investigation of vix risk neutral density abstract we propose a non structural method to retrieve the risk neutral density rnd implied by options on the cboe volatility index vix the methodology is based on orthogonal polynomial expansions around a kernel density and yields the rnd of the underlying asset without the need for a parametric specification the classic family of laguerre expansions is extended to include the gig and the generalized weibull kernels we show that orthogonal polynomial expansions yield accurate approximations of the rnd of vix and they generally outperform commonly used non parametric methods when controlling for accuracy based on a panel of observed vix options we retrieve the variance swap term structure the time series of vvix the vix risk neutral moments and the volatility at risk which reveal a number of stylized facts on the rnd of vix

valuation of vix derivatives abstract we conduct an extensive empirical analysis of vix derivative valuation models before during and after the 2008 2009 financial crisis since the restrictive mean reversion and heteroskedasticity features of existing models yield large distortions during the crisis we propose generalisations with a time varying central tendency jumps and stochastic volatility analyse their pricing performance and implications for term structures of vix futures and volatility skews we find that a process for the log of the observed vix combining central tendency and stochastic volatility reliably prices vix derivatives we also uncover a significant risk premium that shifts the long run volatility level

note learning effects in economic lot sizing the classical square root formula for optimal lot size is a useful tool especially for those manufacturing processes in which labor intensive items are produced in small quantities there is a class of stationary lot sizing problems to which this formula applies with learning effects introduced into the production cost of this class of problems the optimal lot size becomes the solution of a transcendental equation numerical solutions are presented as well as an approximation which has the structure of the classical formula

valuing futures and options on volatility abstract this paper presents simple closed form expressions for volatility futures and option prices and examines their implications for the characteristics of these securities we show that the properties of these volatility derivatives are fundamentally different from those of conventional option and futures contracts this analysis also provides insights into the role that volatility derivatives may play in managing and hedging volatility risk in financial markets

active labor market policy evaluations a meta analysis this article presents a meta analysis of recent microeconometric evaluations of active labour market policies we categorise 199 programme impacts from 97 studies conducted between 1995 and 2007 job search assistance programmes yield relatively favourable programme impacts whereas public sector employment programmes are less effective training programmes are associated with positive medium term impacts although in the short term they often appear ineffective we also find that the outcome variable used to measure programme impact matters but neither the publication status of a study nor the use of a randomised design is related to the sign or significance of the programme estimate

evidence of treatment spillovers within markets this paper provides a method to infer the presence of treatment spillovers within markets where a fraction of agents is treated we model individual outcomes as functions of the assigned treatment status and the distribution of assigned treatments in a market we develop a two step identification and estimation method focusing first on the treatment distribution among individuals within markets and then on the treatment distribution across markets we apply our approach to training programs for unemployed individuals in france using rich administrative data our results provide evidence of interactions within local labor markets as potential individual outcomes vary with the proportion of treated individuals

how effective are unemployment benefit sanctions looking beyond unemployment exit this paper provides a comprehensive evaluation of benefit sanctions i e temporary reductions in unemployment benefits as punishment for noncompliance with eligibility requirements in addition to the effects on unemployment durations we evaluate the effects on post unemployment employment stability on exits from the labor market and on earnings in our analysis we use a rich set of swiss register data which allow us to distinguish between ex ante effects the effects of warnings and the effects of enforcement of benefit sanctions adopting a multivariate mixed proportional hazard approach to address selectivity we find that both warnings and enforcement increase the job finding rate and the exit rate out of the labor force warnings do not affect subsequent employment stability but do reduce post unemployment earnings actual benefit reductions lower the quality of post unemployment jobs both in terms of job duration as well as in terms of earnings the net effect of a benefit sanction on post unemployment income is negative over a period of two years after leaving unemployment workers who got a benefit sanction imposed face a net income loss equivalent to 30 days of full pay due to the ex post effect in addition to that stricter monitoring may reduce net earnings by up to 4 days of pay for every unemployed worker due to the ex ante effect

providing advice to jobseekers at low cost an experimental study on online advice we develop and evaluate experimentally a novel tool that redesigns the job search process by providing tailored advice at low cost we invited jobseekers to our computer facilities for twelve consecutive weekly sessions to search for real jobs on our web interface for one half instead of relying on their own search criteria we use readily available labour market data to display relevant alternative occupations and associated jobs the data indicate that this broadens the set of jobs they consider and increases their job interviews especially for participants who otherwise search narrowly and have been unemployed for a few months

disincentive effects of unemployment benefits and the role of caseworkers abstract a large literature has documented that the unemployment duration of unemployment insurance ui recipients increases with the generosity of the ui system this has been interpreted as the disincentive effect of ui benefits however unemployed workers typically also have caseworkers assigned who are monitoring and assisting the job search efforts these caseworkers may respond to differences in ui eligibility by shifting resources financial or time between unemployed individuals in order to counteract the moral hazard effect of ui benefits or in order to focus resources to where they have the largest effect this suggests that the typical estimates of the disincentive effects of ui may be biased in studies that compare workers within the same ui agency we estimate whether caseworkers respond to the generosity of ui using a regression discontinuity rd design in germany where potential ui durations vary with age we show that across a wide variety of measures such as meetings sanctions and training programs ui caseworkers do not treat unemployed with different eligibility differently at best we find a very small effect that workers with shorter eligibility close to the exhaustion point are more likely to be assigned to training programs that prolong their ui eligibility the typical rd estimates of the ui disincentive effects thus seem to be valid estimates

the role of workfare in striking a balance between incentives and insurance in the labour market unemployment insurance tends to distort incentives in the labour market affecting job search and wage formation adversely we show in a search matching model that this moral hazard problem can be reduced by attaching a workfare requirement to the eligibility conditions for claiming unemployment benefits even when workfare has no effects on human capital or productivity it is possible to improve labour market performance to create more jobs and lower unemployment by the introduction of workfare and also to improve welfare hence the incentive structure in the labour market can be improved by workfare policies rather than benefit reductions

the benefits of relationship lending in a cross country context a meta analysis relationship lending may create benefits for borrowers by reducing information asymmetries however empirical evidence is mixed we conduct a meta analysis to summarize and explain the heterogeneity in the results in the literature using hand collected information from 101 studies in the united states europe asia and latin america from 1970 to 2010 we find that strong relationships are generally beneficial for borrowers but lending outcomes differ across the relationships dimensions long lasting exclusive and synergy creating bank relationships are associated with higher credit volume and lower loan rates these benefits are more likely in the united states and in countries where bank competition is high they are not related to the importance of small and medium sized enterprises in an economy suggesting that prevalence of relationship lending does not necessarily come along with borrower benefits our inferences are robust when we control for observed systematic heterogeneity in the original

a production inventory model for a deteriorating item with trended demand and shortages abstract a production inventory model is developed for a deteriorating item over a finite planning horizon with a linear time varying demand finite production rate and shortages the resulting nonlinear constrained minimization problem is numerically solved by using the box complex algorithm the optimal number of production cycles that minimizes the average system cost is determined sensitivity analysis of the optimal solution is carried out

time series minimum wage studies a meta analysis time series minimum wage studies a meta analysis author s david card and alan b krueger reviewed work s source the american economic review vol 85 no 2 papers and proceedings of the hundredth and seventh annual meeting of the american economic association washington dc january 6 8 1995 may 1995 pp 238 243 published by american economic association stable url http www jstor org stable 2117925 accessed 04 11 2011 15 46

structural empirical evaluation of job search monitoring to evaluate search effort monitoring of unemployed workers it is important to take account of post unemployment wages and job to job mobility we structurally estimate a model with search channels using a controlled trial in which monitoring is randomized the data include registers and survey data on search behavior we find that the opportunity to move to better paid jobs in employment reduces the extent to which monitoring induces substitution toward formal search channels in unemployment job mobility compensates for adverse long run effects of monitoring on wages we examine counterfactual policies against moral hazard like reemployment bonuses and changes of the benefits path

the impact of an adult education voucher program evidence from a randomized field experiment abstract lifelong learning is often promoted in aging societies but little is known about its returns or governments ability to advance it this paper evaluates the effects of a large scale randomized field experiment issuing vouchers for adult education in switzerland we find no significant average effects of the voucher program on earnings employment and subsequent education 1 year after treatment but effects are heterogeneous low educated individuals are most likely to profit from adult education but least likely to use the voucher in addition the public voucher program appears to crowd out firm financed training the findings cast doubt on the effectiveness of untargeted voucher programs in promoting labor market outcomes through adult education

the effects of learning and forgetting on the optimal production lot size for deteriorating items with time varying demand and deterioration rates abstract in this paper we shall study the effects of learning and forgetting on the production lot size problems for an infinite planning horizon items deteriorate while they are in storage and both demand and deterioration rates are arbitrary functions of time the instantaneous production rate presented herein is dependent on the time required to produce the first unit at the beginning of production process the number of units remembered and the fixed learning slope component the forgetting slope is represented by an approximation of the minimum break to which the manufacturer assumes total forgetting so that it allows variable total forgetting breaks the system is subject to learning in the production stage and to forgetting while production ceased so that the optimal manufactured quantity for any given cycle is dependent on the instantaneous production rate a closed form for the total relevant costs is derived and rigorous mathematical methods that guide to a minimum total cost of the underlying inventory system are introduced illustrative examples which explain the applications of the theoretical results as well as their numerical verifications are also given