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What Works Best for Getting the Unemployed Back to Work: Employment Services or Small-Business Assistance Programmes? Evidence from Romania

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Author Info
Nuria Rodriguez-Planas () (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, FEDEA and IZA)

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Abstract

Recent empirical evidence has found that employment services and small-business assistance programmes are often successful at getting the unemployed back to work. One important concern of policy makers is to decide which of these two programmes is more effective and for whom. Using unusually rich (for transition economies) survey data and matching methods, I evaluate the relative effectiveness of these two programmes in Romania. While I find that employment services (ES) are, on average, more successful than a small-business assistance programme (SBA), estimation of heterogeneity effects reveals that, compared to non-participation, ES are effective for workers with little access to informal search channels, and SBA works for less-qualified workers and those living in rural areas. When comparing ES to SBA, I find that ES tend to be more efficient than SBA for workers without a high-school degree, and that the opposite holds for the more educated workers.

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Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 3051.

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Length: 54 pages
Date of creation: Sep 2007
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Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3051

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Related research
Keywords: active labour market programmes evaluation propensity score matching transition economies treatment effects

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand
J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
J65 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies - - - Unemployment Insurance; Severance Pay; Plant Closings
J68 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, and Vacancies - - - Public Policy

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