IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp2533.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Beautiful Serbia

Author

Listed:
  • Bonin, Holger

    (IHS - Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna)

  • Rinne, Ulf

    (IZA)

Abstract

The paper studies the causal impact of participation in an active labor market program – the ‘Beautiful Serbia’ program providing training and temporary work in the construction sector in Serbia and Montenegro – on measures of subjective well-being approximating individual welfare. According to our estimates, the positive impact of this particular program appears much stronger judged by subjective well-being than judged by the immediate labor market effect.

Suggested Citation

  • Bonin, Holger & Rinne, Ulf, 2006. "Beautiful Serbia," IZA Discussion Papers 2533, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2533
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp2533.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marco Caliendo & Sabine Kopeinig, 2008. "Some Practical Guidance For The Implementation Of Propensity Score Matching," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(1), pages 31-72, February.
    2. Kluve, Jochen & Lehmann, Hartmut & Schmidt, Christoph M., 1999. "Active Labor Market Policies in Poland: Human Capital Enhancement, Stigmatization, or Benefit Churning?," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 61-89, March.
    3. Korpi, Tomas, 1997. "Is utility related to employment status? Employment, unemployment, labor market policies and subjective well-being among Swedish youth," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 125-147, June.
    4. Lubyova, Martina & van Ours, Jan C., 1999. "Effects of Active Labor Market Programs on the Transition Rate from Unemployment into Regular Jobs in the Slovak Republic," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 90-112, March.
    5. Michael Lechner & Conny Wunsch, 2009. "Active labour market policy in East Germany," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 17(4), pages 661-702, October.
    6. Oswald, Andrew J, 1997. "Happiness and Economic Performance," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 107(445), pages 1815-1831, November.
    7. Hayo, Bernd & Seifert, Wolfgang, 2003. "Subjective economic well-being in Eastern Europe," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 329-348, June.
    8. Jonathan Gruber & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2006. "Do Cigarette Taxes Make Smokers Happier?," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Yew-Kwang Ng & Lok Sang Ho (ed.), Happiness and Public Policy, chapter 6, pages 109-146, Palgrave Macmillan.
    9. Zhao, Zhong, 2008. "Sensitivity of propensity score methods to the specifications," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 98(3), pages 309-319, March.
    10. Andrew E. Clark & Paul Frijters & Michael A. Shields, 2008. "Relative Income, Happiness, and Utility: An Explanation for the Easterlin Paradox and Other Puzzles," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 46(1), pages 95-144, March.
    11. Núria Rodríguez-Planas & Benus Jacob, 2010. "Evaluating active labor market programs in Romania," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 38(1), pages 65-84, February.
    12. Alberto Abadie & Guido W. Imbens, 2008. "On the Failure of the Bootstrap for Matching Estimators," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(6), pages 1537-1557, November.
    13. Patrick Puhani & Viktor Steiner, 1997. "The Effectiveness and Efficiency of Active Labour Market Policies in Poland," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 24(3), pages 209-231, October.
    14. Bernd Hayo, 2004. "Happiness in Eastern Europe," Marburg Working Papers on Economics 200412, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    15. Micklewright, John & Nagy, Gyula, 2010. "The effect of monitoring unemployment insurance recipients on unemployment duration: Evidence from a field experiment," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 180-187, January.
    16. Heckman, James J. & Lalonde, Robert J. & Smith, Jeffrey A., 1999. "The economics and econometrics of active labor market programs," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 31, pages 1865-2097, Elsevier.
    17. Michael Lechner, 2002. "Some practical issues in the evaluation of heterogeneous labour market programmes by matching methods," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 165(1), pages 59-82, February.
    18. Hayo, Bernd, 2007. "Happiness in transition: An empirical study on Eastern Europe," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 204-221, June.
    19. van Ours, J.C. & Lubyova, M., 1999. "Effects of active labour market programmes on the transition rate from unemployment into regular jobs in the Slovak Republic," Other publications TiSEM 742d0ca3-611a-4b55-a8c4-8, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    20. Mihail Arandarenko & Milena Jovicic, 2007. "Regional Labour Market Differences in Serbia: Assessment and Policy Recommendations," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 4(2), pages 299-317, September.
    21. Martin, John P. & Grubb, David, 2001. "What works and for whom: a review of OECD countries' experiences with active labour market policies," Working Paper Series 2001:14, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    22. Dolan, Paul & Peasgood, Tessa & White, Mathew, 2008. "Do we really know what makes us happy A review of the economic literature on the factors associated with subjective well-being," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 94-122, February.
    23. repec:lic:licosd:8099 is not listed on IDEAS
    24. Christopher J. O'Leary, 2004. "Evaluating the Effectiveness of Labor Exchange Services," Book chapters authored by Upjohn Institute researchers, in: David E. Balducchi & Randall W. Eberts & Christopher J. O'Leary (ed.), Labor Exchange Policy in the United States, chapter 5, pages 135-178, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    25. Frey, Bruno S & Stutzer, Alois, 2000. "Happiness, Economy and Institutions," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(466), pages 918-938, October.
    26. Ronald W. McQuaid & Colin Lindsay, 2005. "The Concept of Employability," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 42(2), pages 197-219, February.
    27. Lechner, Michael, 1999. "Identification and Estimation of Causal Effects of Multiple Treatments Under the Conditional Independence Assumption," IZA Discussion Papers 91, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    28. Kluve, Jochen, 2010. "The effectiveness of European active labor market programs," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(6), pages 904-918, December.
    29. Richard Layard, 2006. "Happiness and Public Policy: a Challenge to the Profession," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(510), pages 24-33, March.
    30. Andrew E. Clark & Paul Frijters & Michael A. Shields, 2006. "Income and happiness: Evidence, explanations and economic implications," PSE Working Papers halshs-00590436, HAL.
    31. Barbara Sianesi, 2004. "An Evaluation of the Swedish System of Active Labor Market Programs in the 1990s," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(1), pages 133-155, February.
    32. Schneider, Friedrich G., 2007. "Shadow Economies and Corruption All Over the World: New Estimates for 145 Countries," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 1, pages 1-66.
    33. A. Smith, Jeffrey & E. Todd, Petra, 2005. "Does matching overcome LaLonde's critique of nonexperimental estimators?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 125(1-2), pages 305-353.
    34. Nuria Rodriguez-Planas† & Jacob Benus, 2007. "Evaluative Active Labor Market Programmes in Romania," Working Papers 2007-31, FEDEA.
    35. Rafael Di Tella & Robert J. MacCulloch & Andrew J. Oswald, 2003. "The Macroeconomics of Happiness," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 809-827, November.
    36. Patrick A. Puhani, 2002. "Advantage through Training in Poland? A Microeconometric Evaluation of the Employment Effects of Training and Job Subsidy Programmes," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 16(3), pages 569-608, September.
    37. Andrew E. Clark & Paul Frijters & Michael A. Shields, 2006. "Income and Happiness: Evidence, Explanations and Economic Implications. Working paper #5," NCER Working Paper Series 5, National Centre for Econometric Research.
    38. Rafael Di Tella & Robert MacCulloch, 2006. "Some Uses of Happiness Data in Economics," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(1), pages 25-46, Winter.
    39. Sianesi, Barbara, 2001. "An evaluation of the active labour market programmes in Sweden," Working Paper Series 2001:5, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    40. Krstic, Gorana & Litchfield, Julie & Reilly, Barry, 2007. "An anatomy of male labour market earnings inequality in Serbia, 1996-2003," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 97-114, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wolf, Tobias & Hetschko, Clemens & Schöb, Ronnie, 2016. "Income Support, (Un-)Employment and Well-Being," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145860, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    2. Daniel Sage, 2015. "Do Active Labour Market Policies Promote the Well-Being, Health and Social Capital of the Unemployed? Evidence from the UK," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 124(2), pages 319-337, November.
    3. Senhu Wang & Adam Coutts & Brendan Burchell & Daiga KamerÄ de & Ursula Balderson, 2021. "Can Active Labour Market Programmes Emulate the Mental Health Benefits of Regular Paid Employment? Longitudinal Evidence from the United Kingdom," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 35(3), pages 545-565, June.
    4. Zubović, Jovan & Domazet, Ivana, 2012. "Effectiveness of government interventions at labour markets: the case of women and youth in Serbia," MPRA Paper 44347, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Zubović, Jovan & Simeunović, Ivana, 2012. "On the New Methodology of Cost‐Benefit Analysis of ALMP – The Case of Serbia," MPRA Paper 42532, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. World Bank, 2016. "Women's Access to Economic Opportunities in Serbia," World Bank Publications - Reports 25183, The World Bank Group.
    7. Jovan, Zubovic & Jonel, Subic, 2011. "Reviewing development of active labour market policies and the evaluation techniques," MPRA Paper 35282, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 17 Oct 2011.
    8. Anna McCord, 2008. "Recognising Heterogeneity: A Proposed Typology for Public Works Programmes," SALDRU Working Papers 26, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lechner Michael & Miquel Ruth & Wunsch Conny, 2007. "The Curse and Blessing of Training the Unemployed in a Changing Economy: The Case of East Germany After Unification," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 8(4), pages 468-509, December.
    2. Leonardo Becchetti & Alessandra Pelloni, 2013. "What are we learning from the life satisfaction literature?," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 60(2), pages 113-155, June.
    3. Chun-Hung Lin & Suchandra Lahiri & Ching-Po Hsu, 2014. "Happiness and Regional Segmentation: Does Space Matter?," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 57-83, February.
    4. Roberta Distante, 2013. "Subjective Well-Being, Income and Relative Concerns in the UK," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 113(1), pages 81-105, August.
    5. Easterlin, Richard A., 2009. "Lost in transition: Life satisfaction on the road to capitalism," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 130-145, August.
    6. Odermatt, Reto & Stutzer, Alois, 2017. "Subjective Well-Being and Public Policy," IZA Discussion Papers 11102, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Tim Tiefenbach & Florian Kohlbacher, 2015. "Happiness in Japan in Times of Upheaval: Empirical Evidence from the National Survey on Lifestyle Preferences," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 333-366, April.
    8. Michael Lechner & Ruth Miquel & Conny Wunsch, 2011. "Long‐Run Effects Of Public Sector Sponsored Training In West Germany," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 742-784, August.
    9. Rodríguez-Planas, Núria, 2007. "What Works Best for Getting the Unemployed Back to Work: Employment Services or Small-Business Assistance Programmes? Evidence from Romania," IZA Discussion Papers 3051, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Caporale, Guglielmo Maria & Georgellis, Yannis & Tsitsianis, Nicholas & Yin, Ya Ping, 2009. "Income and happiness across Europe: Do reference values matter?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 42-51, February.
    11. O'Donnell, Gus & Oswald, Andrew J., 2015. "National well-being policy and a weighted approach to human feelings," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 59-70.
    12. Manuela Deidda & Adriana Di Liberto & Marta Foddi & Giovanni Sulis, 2015. "Employment subsidies, informal economy and women’s transition into work in a depressed area: evidence from a matching approach," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-25, December.
    13. Badunenko, Oleg & Cordero, Jose M. & Kumbhakar, Subal C., 2021. "Are you slacking? Where do you and your country stand in the happiness pursuit?," MPRA Paper 108316, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Heinrich, Carolyn J. & Mueser, Peter R. & Troske, Kenneth & Jeon, Kyung-Seong & Kahvecioglu, Daver C., 2009. "New Estimates of Public Employment and Training Program Net Impacts: A Nonexperimental Evaluation of the Workforce Investment Act Program," IZA Discussion Papers 4569, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Choe, Chung & Flores-Lagunes, Alfonso & Lee, Sang-Jun, 2011. "Do Dropouts Benefit from Training Programs? Korean Evidence Employing Methods for Continuous Treatments," IZA Discussion Papers 6064, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Köke, Sonja & Perino, Grischa, 2017. "For "better" or "worse": a direct approach to elicit preference rankings from life-satisfaction data," WiSo-HH Working Paper Series 43, University of Hamburg, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences, WISO Research Laboratory.
    17. Kluve, Jochen & Lehmann, Hartmut & Schmidt, Christoph M., 2008. "Disentangling Treatment Effects of Active Labor Market Policies: The Role of Labor Force Status Sequences," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(6), pages 1270-1295, December.
    18. Stutzer, Alois & Frey, Bruno S., 2010. "Recent Advances in the Economics of Individual Subjective Well-Being," IZA Discussion Papers 4850, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Ebrahim, Amina, 2010. "The Determinants Of Happiness Among Race Groups In South Africa," Honours Students' Projects 107588, Rhodes University, Department of Economics and Economic History.
    20. Nguyen Viet, Cuong, 2012. "Selection of Control Variables in Propensity Score Matching: Evidence from a Simulation Study," MPRA Paper 36377, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    subjective well-being; program evaluation; Serbia and Montenegro;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J68 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Public Policy
    • H43 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Project Evaluation; Social Discount Rate
    • P27 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies - - - Performance and Prospects

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iza:izadps:dp2533. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    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.