IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp7873.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Making Work Pay for the Indebted: The Effect of Debt Services on the Exit Rates of Unemployed Individuals

Author

Listed:
  • Koning, Pierre

    (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)

Abstract

This paper investigates the effectiveness of an intervention that was targeted at a specific group of Dutch Social Assistance (SA) recipients with debt problems. With a large share of the income gains of work resumption were transferred to the creditors, these individuals experienced a strong a priori disincentive to resume formal work. The direct aims of this intervention were therefore twofold: the restructuring of personal debts and the prevention of new debt problems to arise. We use the timing-of-events method to identify the effects of debt programs on SA spells. Our key finding is that the provision of debt services substantially increased the exit out of the SA schemes, but this was mainly due to exits out of the labor force. This suggests individuals perceived or experienced program as unpleasant and opted to exit without work. At the same time, the debts program offer increased the exit rate for targeted individuals that did not show up, probably due to increased monitoring and sanction activities.

Suggested Citation

  • Koning, Pierre, 2013. "Making Work Pay for the Indebted: The Effect of Debt Services on the Exit Rates of Unemployed Individuals," IZA Discussion Papers 7873, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7873
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp7873.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Card & Jochen Kluve & Andrea Weber, 2010. "Active Labour Market Policy Evaluations: A Meta-Analysis," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(548), pages 452-477, November.
    2. Jaap H. Abbring & Gerard J. Berg & Jan C. Ours, 2005. "The Effect of Unemployment Insurance Sanctions on the Transition Rate from Unemployment to Employment," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 115(505), pages 602-630, July.
    3. Bart Cockx & Corinna Ghirelli & Bruno Van der Linden, 2013. "Monitoring Job Search Effort with Hyperbolic Time Preferences and Non-Compliance: A Welfare Analysis," CESifo Working Paper Series 4187, CESifo.
    4. Hägglund, Pathric, 2006. "Are there pre-programme effects of Swedish active labour market policies? Evidence from three randomised experiments," Working Paper Series 2006:2, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    5. Riemer P. Faber & Pierre Koning, 2017. "Why not fully spend a conditional block grant?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 24(1), pages 60-95, February.
    6. Rafael Lalive & Jan C. van Ours & Josef Zweimüller, 2005. "The Effect Of Benefit Sanctions On The Duration Of Unemployment," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(6), pages 1386-1417, December.
    7. Heckman, James J. & Kautz, Tim, 2012. "Hard evidence on soft skills," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 451-464.
    8. Kluve, Jochen, 2010. "The effectiveness of European active labor market programs," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(6), pages 904-918, December.
    9. Graversen, Brian Krogh & van Ours, Jan C., 2008. "How to help unemployed find jobs quickly: Experimental evidence from a mandatory activation program," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(10-11), pages 2020-2035, October.
    10. Heckman, James J. & Moon, Seong Hyeok & Pinto, Rodrigo & Savelyev, Peter A. & Yavitz, Adam, 2010. "The rate of return to the HighScope Perry Preschool Program," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1-2), pages 114-128, February.
    11. M. Daniele Paserman, 2008. "Job Search and Hyperbolic Discounting: Structural Estimation and Policy Evaluation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(531), pages 1418-1452, August.
    12. Bernhard Boockmann & Stephan Thomsen & Thomas Walter, 2009. "Intensifying the Use of Benefit Sanctions – An Effective Tool to Shorten Welfare Receipt and Speed up Transitions to Employment?," IAW Discussion Papers 56, Institut für Angewandte Wirtschaftsforschung (IAW).
    13. Stefano DellaVigna & M. Daniele Paserman, 2005. "Job Search and Impatience," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 23(3), pages 527-588, July.
    14. Jensen, Peter & Rosholm, Michael & Svarer, Michael, 2003. "The response of youth unemployment to benefits, incentives, and sanctions," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 301-316, June.
    15. Michelle J. White, 2011. "Corporate and Personal Bankruptcy Law," NBER Working Papers 17237, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Stephen Kastoryano & Bas van der Klaauw, 2022. "Dynamic evaluation of job search assistance," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(2), pages 227-241, March.
    17. Song Han & Wenli Li, 2007. "Fresh Start or Head Start? The Effects of Filing for Personal Bankruptcy on Work Effort," Journal of Financial Services Research, Springer;Western Finance Association, vol. 31(2), pages 123-152, June.
    18. Riemer P. Faber & Pierre Koning, 2017. "Why not fully spend a conditional block grant?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 24(1), pages 60-95, February.
    19. van den Berg, Gerard J. & Kjaersgaard, Lene & Rosholm, Michael, 2012. "To Meet or Not to Meet (Your Case Worker) – That is the Question," IZA Discussion Papers 6476, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Michael Rosholm & Michael Svarer, 2008. "The Threat Effect of Active Labour Market Programmes," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 110(2), pages 385-401, June.
    21. Jaap H. Abbring & Gerard J. van den Berg, 2003. "The Nonparametric Identification of Treatment Effects in Duration Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(5), pages 1491-1517, September.
    22. Lars Pico Geerdsen, 2006. "Is there a Threat Effect of Labour Market Programmes? A Study of ALMP in the Danish UI System," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(513), pages 738-750, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Koning, Pierre, 2015. "Making work pay for the indebted? Assessing the effects of debt services on welfare recipients," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 152-161.
    2. van der Klaauw, B. & van Ours, J.C., 2010. "Carrot and Stick : How Reemployment Bonuses and Benefit Sanctions Affect Job Finding Rates," Other publications TiSEM f368f876-0bd7-499d-8211-d, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    3. Muller, Paul & van der Klaauw, Bas & Heyma, Arjan, 2017. "Comparing Econometric Methods to Empirically Evaluate Job-Search Assistance," IZA Discussion Papers 10531, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Alessio Brown & Johannes Koettl, 2015. "Active labor market programs - employment gain or fiscal drain?," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-36, December.
    5. Rainer Eppel & Helmut Mahringer & Andrea Weber, 2014. "Job Search Behaviour and Job Search Success of the Unemployed," WIFO Working Papers 471, WIFO.
    6. Paul Muller & Bas van der Klaauw & Arjan Heyma, 2020. "Comparing econometric methods to empirically evaluate activation programs for job seekers," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(5), pages 526-547, August.
    7. Rosholm, Michael, 2008. "Experimental Evidence on the Nature of the Danish Employment Miracle," Working Papers 08-14, University of Aarhus, Aarhus School of Business, Department of Economics.
    8. Bernhard Boockmann & Christopher Osiander & Michael Stops, 2014. "Vermittlerstrategien und Arbeitsmarkterfolg – Evidenz aus kombinierten Prozess- und Befragungsdaten [Caseworkers’ strategies and clients’ labor market outcomes]," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 47(4), pages 341-360, December.
    9. Kelly, Elish & McGuinness, Seamus & O'Connell, Philip J., 2011. "What Can Active Labour Market Policies Do?," Papers EC1, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    10. Nisar Ahmad & Michael Svarer & Amjad Naveed, 2019. "The Effect of Active Labour Market Programmes and Benefit Sanctions on Reducing Unemployment Duration," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 40(2), pages 202-229, June.
    11. Verónica Escudero, 2018. "Are active labour market policies effective in activating and integrating low-skilled individuals? An international comparison," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 7(1), pages 1-26, December.
    12. Marco Caliendo & Ricarda Schmidl, 2016. "Youth unemployment and active labor market policies in Europe," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 5(1), pages 1-30, December.
    13. Eva m. Berger & Guenther Koenig & Henning Müller & Felix Schmidt & Daniel Schunk, 2017. "Self-Regulation Training and Job Search Effort: A Natural Field Experiment within an Active Labor Market Program," Working Papers 1712, Gutenberg School of Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.
    14. Mergele, Lukas & Weber, Michael, 2020. "Public employment services under decentralization: Evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    15. Rainer Eppel & Helmut Mahringer, 2019. "Getting a lot out of a little bit of work? The effects of marginal employment during unemployment," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 46(2), pages 381-408, May.
    16. Caroline Hall & Kaisa Kotakorpi & Linus Liljeberg & Jukka Pirttilä, 2022. "Screening through Activation? Differential Effects of a Youth Activation Program," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 57(3), pages 1033-1077.
    17. Tito Boeri & Jan van Ours, 2013. "The Economics of Imperfect Labor Markets: Second Edition," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10142.
    18. Tuomala, Juha & Hämäläinen, Kari & Hämäläinen, Ulla, 2014. "The labour market impacts of a youth guarantee: lessons for Europe?," Working Papers 60, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    19. Michael Svarer, 2007. "The Effect of Sanctions on the Job Finding Rate: Evidence from Denmark," Economics Working Papers 2007-10, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    20. Lombardi, Stefano, 2019. "Threat effects of monitoring and unemployment insurance sanctions: evidence from two reforms," Working Paper Series 2019:22, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    debt services; program evaluation; threat effects;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C21 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models
    • D14 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Household Saving; Personal Finance
    • H75 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Government: Health, Education, and Welfare
    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • J18 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Public Policy
    • K35 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Personal Bankruptcy Law

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7873. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.