Give them a break! Did activation of young welfare recipients overshoot in Germany? (A regression discontinuity analysis)

Konferenzbeitrag

In Germany, due to special rules 15- to 24-year-old welfare recipients, registered with Public Employment Office, are highly targeted by mandatory activation policies. This paper investigates the effects of the special rules in terms of enhancing the (re-)employment probability, increasing earnings and reducing benefit dependency of targeted people in East and West Germany in the short- and the long-run. Using registry dataset of the inflow into unemployment and welfare over the period October 2005 to January 2006 the paper exploits the age related eligibility rule to identify a suitable counterfactual using a regression discontinuity design. Our estimates imply zero or negative effects of targeting for selected population subgroups. A possible explanation to our finding is that an excessive targeting of young welfare recipients by active labour market programmes may lead to a low quality matches between programmes and participants.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Beiträge zur Jahrestagung des Vereins für Socialpolitik 2012: Neue Wege und Herausforderungen für den Arbeitsmarkt des 21. Jahrhunderts - Session: Labor Market Policy Evaluation ; No. B08-V1

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Estimation: General ; Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty: Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs ; Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies: Public Policy

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Wolff, Joachim ; Nivorozhkin, Anton
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (when): 2012

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/62046
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET