IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/labeco/v93y2025ics0927537125000144.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Incentive-based active labor market programs: Insights from policy experimentation in Italy

Author

Listed:
  • Zanella, Giulio
  • Salomone, Riccardo

Abstract

Two programs providing financial incentives for reemployment of workers at risk of long-term unemployment are evaluated vis-à-vis intensive job-search assistance through policy experimentation involving about 10,000 job seekers in Italy: (i) a reemployment voucher that incentivizes specialized providers; (ii) a reemployment bonus that incentivizes job seekers directly. Results indicate that: the voucher is effective for men while the bonus works for women; each policy is no less effective than job-search assistance, but only the voucher is clearly cost effective; there are no side effects on post-treatment earnings or job duration. A one-sided job search model with endogenous search effort rationalizes these empirical findings.

Suggested Citation

  • Zanella, Giulio & Salomone, Riccardo, 2025. "Incentive-based active labor market programs: Insights from policy experimentation in Italy," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:labeco:v:93:y:2025:i:c:s0927537125000144
    DOI: 10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102687
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927537125000144
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102687?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Reemployment voucher; Reemployment bonus; Job search assistance; Active labor market policy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
    • J65 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment Insurance; Severance Pay; Plant Closings
    • J68 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Public Policy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:labeco:v:93:y:2025:i:c:s0927537125000144. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/labeco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.