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

54 Pages Posted: 23 Oct 2007 Last revised: 16 Apr 2023

See all articles by Núria Rodríguez-Planas

Núria Rodríguez-Planas

City University New York (CUNY), Queens College; University of Barcelona - Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB)

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.

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

JEL Classification: J21, J23, J31, J64, J65, J68

Suggested Citation

Rodriguez-Planas, Nuria, What Works Best for Getting the Unemployed Back to Work: Employment Services or Small-Business Assistance Programmes? Evidence from Romania. IZA Discussion Paper No. 3051, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1022935 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1022935

Nuria Rodriguez-Planas (Contact Author)

City University New York (CUNY), Queens College ( email )

65-30 Kissena Blvd
Flushing, NY 11367-1597
United States

HOME PAGE: http://https://sites.google.com/site/nuriarodriguezplanas/

University of Barcelona - Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB) ( email )

c/ Tinent Coronel Valenzuela, 1-11
Barcelona, 08034
Spain

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