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Start-up Subsidies for the Unemployed: Long-Term Evidence and Effect Heterogeneity

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  • Marco Caliendo
  • Steffen Künn

Abstract

Turning unemployment into self-employment has become an increasingly important part of active labor market policies (ALMP) in many OECD countries. Germany is a good example where the spending on start-up subsidies for the unemployed accounted for nearly 17% of the total spending on ALMP in 2004. In contrast to other programs-like vocational training, job creation schemes, or wage subsidies-the empirical evidence on the effectiveness of such schemes is still scarce; especially regarding long-term effects and effect heterogeneity. This paper aims to close this gap. We use administrative and survey data from a large sample of participants in two distinct start-up programs and a control group of unemployed individuals. We find that over 80% of participants are integrated in the labor market and have relatively high labor income five years after start-up. Additionally, participants are much more satisfied with their current occupational situation compared to previous jobs. Based on conditional propensity score matching methods we estimate the long-term effects of the programs against non-participation. Our results show that both programs are effective with respect to income and employment outcomes in the long-run. Moreover, we consider effect heterogeneity with respect to several dimensions and show that start-up subsidies for the unemployed tend to be most effective for disadvantaged groups in the labor market.

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  • Marco Caliendo & Steffen Künn, 2010. "Start-up Subsidies for the Unemployed: Long-Term Evidence and Effect Heterogeneity," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 985, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
  • Handle: RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp985
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Start-up subsidies; self-employment; evaluation; long-term effects; effect heterogeneity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J68 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Public Policy
    • C14 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Semiparametric and Nonparametric Methods: General
    • H43 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Project Evaluation; Social Discount Rate

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