Active labour market policies are still one of the major tools to fight unemployment and
improve functioning of the labour market. However, growing scepticism regarding the effects of
active policies and very different evaluation findings are the main reason of growing interest in
developing the evalution methods of these policies. The paper outlines the key theoretical issues
concerning ALMP evaluation and also intends to explain the need of evaluation of these measures,
especially in countries which have just joined European Union, for example Poland.
The first part describes evaluation purposes nad briefly characterizes differences between
various types of evaluation. The second part covers the methodological aspects of ALMP
microevalutions, defines the fundamental evaluation problem and reviews some quasiexperimental
methods, commonly used in the EU -15, like before-after designs, matching and
parametric regression, and conditional difference in differences estimation, uderlying their strenths
and weaknesses.The last part of the article presents some problems of ALMP evaluation in Poland.
The paper concludes that the main barriers of implementing evaluation system in Poland are: the
lack of funds to conduct systematic evaluations, bad procedures and poorly developed information
systems used by public employment services, low quality or the lack of proper statistical data
needed for evaluations, and insufficient qualifications of PES’ employees to control and evaluate
the effects of ALMP.Zadanie pt. „Digitalizacja i udostępnienie w Cyfrowym Repozytorium Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego kolekcji czasopism naukowych wydawanych przez Uniwersytet Łódzki” nr 885/P-DUN/2014 zostało dofinansowane ze środków MNiSW w ramach działalności upowszechniającej naukę
