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

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  • Wolff, Joachim
  • Nivorozhkin, Anton

Abstract

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Wolff, Joachim & Nivorozhkin, Anton, 2012. "Give them a break! Did activation of young welfare recipients overshoot in Germany? (A regression discontinuity analysis)," VfS Annual Conference 2012 (Goettingen): New Approaches and Challenges for the Labor Market of the 21st Century 62046, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:vfsc12:62046
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    Cited by:

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    2. 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.
    3. van den Berg, Gerard J. & Uhlendorff, Arne & Wolff, Joachim, 2013. "Sanctions for Young Welfare Recipients," IZA Discussion Papers 7630, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C13 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Estimation: General
    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • J68 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Public Policy

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