Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics

Working Paper Series,
IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy

No 2015:16: Structural empirical evaluation of job search monitoring

Gerar J. van den Berg () and Bas van der Klaauw
Additional contact information
Gerar J. van den Berg: IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy, Postal: P.0. Box 513, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden
Bas van der Klaauw: Department of Economics, University of Amsterdam, Postal: De Boelelaan 1105, NL-1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Abstract: 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 job search model with endogenous job search effort by the unemployed along various search channels that deals with this. The data are from an experiment in the Netherlands in which the extent of monitoring is randomized. They include registers of post-unemployment outcomes like wages and job mobility, and survey data on measures of search behavior. As such we are the first to study monitoring effects on post-unemployment outcomes. Once employed, individuals have the opportunity to further improve their position by moving to better-paid jobs, and we find that this reduces the extent to which monitoring induces substitution towards formal search channels in unemployment. In general, job mobility compensates for adverse long-run effects of monitoring on wages. We use the structural estimates to compare monitoring to counterfactual policies against moral hazard, like re-employment bonuses and changes in the unemployment benefits path. Replacing monitoring by an over-all benefits reduction in a way that is neutral to the worker results in slightly smaller effects with lower administrative costs.

Keywords: Unemployment duration; search effort; active labor market policy; wage; job duration; job mobility; treatment; search channels; multi-tasking; randomized social experiment

JEL-codes: J23

39 pages, August 25, 2015

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