Evaluating Job Search Programs for Old and Young Individuals: Heterogeneous Impact on Unemployment Duration

This paper exploits an area-based pilot experiment to identify average treatment effects on unemployment duration of treated individuals of two active labor market programs implemented in Portugal. We focus on the short-term heterogeneous impact on two subpopulations of unemployed individuals: young (targeted by the Inserjovem program) and old (targeted by the Reage program). We show that the latter program has a small and positive impact (reduction) on unemployment duration of workers finding a job upon participation, whereas the impact of Inserjovem is generally negative (extended durations). These results are robust to a wide variety of constructions of quasi-experimental settings and estimators. The identification of heterogeneous effects showed that the program results were less satisfactory for young workers, for those over 40 and for the less educated. Women also benefited less from the programs. The results seem to improve slightly for young workers in the 2nd semester of implementation, but they deteriorate in the medium term. The lack of wage subsidies in the Portuguese programs may explain the minor impacts obtained, when compared to similar programs

The Careers of Top Managers and Firm Openness: Internal Versus External Labour Markets

This paper studies the careers of top managers using a large panel of firms. The main objective is to empirically evaluate the role of learning and human capital acquisition in promotion dynamics along with variables capturing the formation of internal labour market (ILM) practices. We find that promotion is negatively correlated with tenure, but that there is a non-linear negative duration dependence with elapsed time since the last promotion event. Firms showing a weaker degree of ILM are less prone to promote insiders. We next take the manager's career inside a firm as a sequence of promotion decisions, and use a nested structure of the promotion decision modelled as a nested logit model. �Results show that the top manager's progression nest into four types: loser, early starter, late beginner, and champion, and that the degree of ILM as a signigicant impact on the process of learning inside the firm.

JOB MATCHING, TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS AND WORKER-PROVIDED ON-THE-JOB TRAINING

According to data from the OCDE, almost one third of the total quantity of on-the-job training is worker-provided. The aim of this paper is to study, in a labor market characterized by frictions, the effects of technological progress on the optimal worker-provided on-the-job training. The paper shows that the greater the technological progress rate less is the probability of the worker investing in specific human capital, if the technology is of creative destruction type, and the greater is the probability of the worker investing specific human capital, if the technology is characterized by renovation; whilst the effect over the general human capital investment doesn't exist in both models. The paper also shows that the impact of human capital investments on labor market outcomes depend on the type of investment - either firm or the market oriented. If the investment is totally aimed at the market, we have as a result an increase in the rate of unemployment, whilst if the investment is totally directed at the firm, we have the opposite effect.

Do labor market policies affect employment composition? Lessons from European countries

We study the effects of different labor market policies on employment composition in a matching model with salaried work and self-employment. We empirically assess some of the model’s predictions using micro data from the European Union Household Panel. Policies such as employment protection legislation and compulsory social security contributions of the self-employed, and their interactions, are relevant to explain the composition of employment in the European labor market. One major policy implication of this result is the need for a convenient policy mix definition.

The Impact of Unemployment Insurance Generosity on Match Quality Distribution

This paper investigates the impact of unemployment insurance (UI) generosity on the distribution of match tenure. We show that more generous UI increases expected tenure, reducing the mass of the lower tail of match duration and increasing the duration of matches available. This impact is differentiated across education levels, with the larger benefits accruing to the less educated.