IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp1839.html

Job Search Monitoring and Unemployment Duration in Hungary: Evidence from a Randomised Control Trial

Author

Listed:
  • Micklewright, John

    (University College London)

  • Nagy, Gyula

    (Corvinus University of Budapest)

Abstract

The impact of the administration of unemployment benefits on time spent unemployed is a neglected issue in discussion of incentive effects in Central and Eastern Europe. We use Labour Force Survey data, administrative registers and inspection of benefit office practices to show that there is good reason to investigate this issue in Hungary. We then report on results from a field experiment of the impact of tightening the administration of benefits in which benefit claimants were randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. Treatment has quite a large effect on durations on benefit of women aged 30 and over while we find no effect for younger women or for men.

Suggested Citation

  • Micklewright, John & Nagy, Gyula, 2005. "Job Search Monitoring and Unemployment Duration in Hungary: Evidence from a Randomised Control Trial," IZA Discussion Papers 1839, IZA Network @ LISER.
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1839
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp1839.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bruce D. Meyer, 1995. "Lessons from the U.S. Unemployment Insurance Experiments," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(1), pages 91-131, March.
    2. Elena Bardasi & Ana Lasaosa & John Micklewright & Gyula Nagy, 1999. "Measuring the Generosity of Unemployment Benefit Systems: Evidence from Hungary and elsewhere in Central Europe," Budapest Working Papers on the Labour Market 9908, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    3. Dan A. Black & Jeffrey A. Smith & Mark C. Berger & Brett J. Noel, 2002. "Is the Threat of Reemployment Services More Effective than the Services Themselves? Experimental Evidence from the UI System," NBER Working Papers 8825, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Micklewright, John & Nagy, Gyula, 1999. "Living standards and incentives in transition: the implications of UI exhaustion in Hungary," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(3), pages 297-319, September.
    5. Tito Boeri & Katherine Terrell, 2002. "Institutional Determinants of Labor Reallocation in Transition," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(1), pages 51-76, Winter.
    6. Dan A. Black & Jeffrey A. Smith & Mark C. Berger & Brett J. Noel, 2003. "Is the Threat of Reemployment Services More Effective Than the Services Themselves? Evidence from Random Assignment in the UI System," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1313-1327, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hartmut Lehmann & Jochen Kluve, 2010. "Assessing Active Labour Market Policies in Transition Economies," AIEL Series in Labour Economics, in: Floro Ernesto Caroleo & Francesco Pastore (ed.), The Labour Market Impact of the EU Enlargement, pages 275-307, Springer.
    2. Müller, Kai-Uwe, 2007. "Observed and unobserved determinants of unemployment insurance benefit sanctions in Germany: Evidence from matched individual and regional administrative data," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Labor Market Policy and Employment SP I 2007-107, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    3. Kluve, Jochen & Fertig, Michael & Jacobi, Lena & Nima, Leonhard & Schaffner, Sandra & Schmidt, Christoph M. & Card, David & Góra, Marek & Jensen, Peter & Leetmaa, Reelika & Patacchini, Eleonora & van , 2005. "Study on the effectiveness of ALMPs: Research project for the European Commission, DG Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities. Final report," RWI Projektberichte, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, number 69929.
    4. Jochen Kluve, 2006. "The Effectiveness of European Active Labor Market Policy," RWI Discussion Papers 0037, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung.
    5. Kluve, Jochen, 2010. "The effectiveness of European active labor market programs," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(6), pages 904-918, December.
    6. Kluve, Jochen, 2006. "The Effectiveness of European Active Labor Market Policy," RWI Discussion Papers 37, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung.
    7. Kluve, Jochen, 2006. "The Effectiveness of European Active Labor Market Policy," IZA Discussion Papers 2018, IZA Network @ LISER.
    8. John C. Ham & Xianghong Li & Lara D. Shore-Sheppard, 2016. "The Employment Dynamics of Disadvantaged Women: Evidence from the SIPP," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(4), pages 899-944.
    9. Annette Bergemann & Gerard J. Van Den Berg, 2008. "Active Labor Market Policy Effects for Women in Europe - A Survey," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 91-92, pages 385-408.
    10. Stephan Thomsen, 2009. "Job Search Assistance Programs in Europe: Evaluation Methods and Recent Empirical Findings," FEMM Working Papers 09018, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Faculty of Economics and Management.
    11. Karoly Fazekas & Zsombor Cseres-Gergely & Agota Scharle (ed.), 2008. "The Hungarian Labour Market 2008," The Hungarian Labour Market Yearbooks, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, number 2008, December.

    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. Micklewright, John & Nagy, Gyula, 2008. "Job Search Monitoring and Unemployment Duration: Evidence from a Randomised Control Trial," CEPR Discussion Papers 6711, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Micklewright, John & Nagy, Gyula, 2010. "The effect of monitoring unemployment insurance recipients on unemployment duration: Evidence from a field experiment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 180-187, January.
    3. Nagy, Gyula & Micklewright, John, 2006. "Az álláskeresés ellenőrzése és a munkanélküliség időtartama. Egy társadalomtudományi kísérlet [Job-search monitoring and unemployment duration: evidence from a randomized control trial]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(7), pages 641-660.
    4. Jeni Klugman & John Micklewright & Gerry Redmond, 2002. "Poverty in the Transition: Social expenditures and the working-age poor," Papers inwopa02/18, Innocenti Working Papers.
    5. Ruud de Mooij, 2004. "Towards efficient unemployment insurance in the Netherlands," CPB Memorandum 100, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    6. Manning, Alan, 2009. "You can't always get what you want: The impact of the UK Jobseeker's Allowance," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 239-250, June.
    7. Kelly, Elish & McGuinness, Seamus & O'Connell, Philip J., 2011. "What Can Active Labour Market Policies Do?," Papers EC1, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    8. Stefanie Behncke & Markus Frölich & Michael Lechner, 2010. "Unemployed and their caseworkers: should they be friends or foes?," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 173(1), pages 67-92, January.
    9. Marios Michaelides & Peter Mueser & Jeffrey Smith, 2019. "Youth Unemployment and U.S. Job Search Assistance Policy during the Great Recession," University of Cyprus Working Papers in Economics 13-2019, University of Cyprus Department of Economics.
    10. 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.
    11. Randall W. Eberts & Christopher J. O'Leary, 2003. "A New WPRS Profiling Model for Michigan," Book chapters authored by Upjohn Institute researchers, in: Joshua Riley & Aquila Branch & Stephen Wandner & Wayne Gordon (ed.),A Compilation of Selected Papers from the Employment and Training Administration's 2003 Biennial National Research Conference, ETA Occasional Paper 20, pages 130-184, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    12. Ana Dammert & Jose Galdo & Virgilio Galdo, 2015. "Integrating mobile phone technologies into labor-market intermediation: a multi-treatment experimental design," IZA Journal of Labor & Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-27, December.
    13. Anton Nivorozhkin, 2005. "New estimates of the risk and duration of registered unemployment in urban Russia," UCL SSEES Economics and Business working paper series 60, UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES).
    14. Benoit Dostie & David Sahn, 2006. "Labor Market Dynamics in Romania During a Period of Economic Liberalization," Cahiers de recherche 06-17, HEC Montréal, Institut d'économie appliquée, revised Jun 2008.
    15. Ott Toomet, 2008. "Threat Effect Of The Labour Market Programs In Denmark: Evidence From A Quasi-Experiment," University of Tartu - Faculty of Economics and Business Administration Working Paper Series 62, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, University of Tartu (Estonia).
    16. Graversen, B.K. & van Ours, J.C., 2009. "How a Mandatory Activation Program Reduces Unemployment Durations : The Effects of Distance," Other publications TiSEM 0071ddbd-1c91-4a52-b1ac-5, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    17. Christopher J. O'Leary, 2017. "Evaluating Public Employment Programs with Field Experiments: A Survey of American Evidence," Upjohn Working Papers 17-279, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    18. Petrongolo, Barbara, 2009. "The long-term effects of job search requirements: Evidence from the UK JSA reform," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(11-12), pages 1234-1253, December.
    19. Zanella, Giulio & Salomone, Riccardo, 2025. "Incentive-based active labor market programs: Insights from policy experimentation in Italy," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    20. Bart Cockx & Stijn Baert, 2015. "Contracting Out Mandatory Counselling and Training for Long-Term Unemployed. Private For-Profit or Non-Profit, or Keep it Public?," CESifo Working Paper Series 5587, CESifo.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
    • J65 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment Insurance; Severance Pay; Plant Closings
    • P23 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies - - - Factor and Product Markets; Industry Studies; Population

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:dp1839. 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: Mark Fallak (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaalu.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.