Is the Notification of Monitoring a Threat to the Unemployed? A Regression Discontinuity Approach

46 Pages Posted: 5 Jul 2007

See all articles by Bart Cockx

Bart Cockx

Ghent University - Department of Economics; Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA); CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute); IRES, Université Catholique de Louvain; ROA Maastricht University

Muriel Dejemeppe

Catholic University of Louvain - School of Economic and Social Research

Date Written: July 2007

Abstract

In July 2004, the Belgian government intensified monitoring within the Unemployment Insurance scheme. Workers claiming unemployment benefits for more than 13 months are notified that past job-search behavior will be monitored 8 months later. In one region the target group is counselled shortly after the notification, while in others not or only once the monitoring has taken place. We exploit the discontinuity in the treatment assignment at the age of 30 to evaluate the threat effect of the notification on the probability of employment. We find that the effect is heterogeneous and critically depends on whether and when notified workers are counselled.

Keywords: evaluation, monitoring job-search, threat effect, regression-discontinuity

JEL Classification: J64, J65, J68, H43

Suggested Citation

Cockx, Bart L. W. and Dejemeppe, Muriel, Is the Notification of Monitoring a Threat to the Unemployed? A Regression Discontinuity Approach (July 2007). CESifo Working Paper No. 2042, IZA Discussion Paper No. 2854, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=998239 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.998239

Bart L. W. Cockx (Contact Author)

Ghent University - Department of Economics ( email )

Ghent, B-9000
Belgium

Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute)

Poschinger Str. 5
Munich, DE-81679
Germany

IRES, Université Catholique de Louvain

Place Montesquieu, 3
Louvain-la-Neuve
Belgium

ROA Maastricht University ( email )

P.O. Box 616
Maastricht, MD6200
Netherlands

Muriel Dejemeppe

Catholic University of Louvain - School of Economic and Social Research ( email )

3, Place Montesquieu
1348 Louvain-la-Neuve
Belgium
+32 10 47 41 00 (Phone)
+32 10 47 39 45 (Fax)

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