TY - JOUR A1 - Caliendo, Marco A1 - Künn, Steffen A1 - Mahlstedt, Robert T1 - The return to labor market mobility BT - an evaluation of relocation assistance for the unemployed JF - Journal of Public Economics N2 - In many European countries, labor markets are characterized by high regional disparities in terms of unemployment rates on the one hand and low geographical mobility among the unemployed on the other hand. In order to counteract the geographical mismatch of workers, the German active labor market policy offers a subsidy covering moving costs to incentivize unemployed job seekers to search/accept jobs in distant regions. Based on administrative data, this study provides the first empirical evidence on the impact of this subsidy on participants' prospective labor market outcomes. We use an instrumental variable approach to take endogenous selection based on observed and unobserved characteristics into account when estimating causal treatment effects. We find that unemployed job seekers who participate in the subsidy program and move to a distant region receive higher wages and find more stable jobs compared to non-participants. We show that the positive effects are (to a large extent) the consequence of a better job match due to the increased search radius of participants. KW - Evaluation KW - Active labor market policy KW - Labor market mobility KW - Instrumental variable approach Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2017.02.008 SN - 0047-2727 VL - 148 SP - 136 EP - 151 PB - Elsevier CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Caliendo, Marco A1 - Künn, Steffen T1 - Getting back into the labor market: the effects of start-up subsidies for unemployed females JF - Journal of population economics N2 - Low female labor market participation is a problem many developed countries have to face. Beside activating inactive women, one possible solution is to support the re-integration of unemployed women. Due to female-specific labor market constraints (preferences for flexible working hours, discrimination), this is a difficult task, and the question arises whether active labor market policies (ALMP) are an appropriate tool to help. It has been shown that the effectiveness of traditional (ALMP) programs-which focus on the integration in dependent (potentially inflexible) employment-is positive but limited. At the same time, recent evidence for Austria shows that these programs reduce fertility which might be judged unfavorable from a societal perspective. Promoting self-employment among unemployed women might therefore be a promising alternative. Starting their own business might give women more independence and flexibility to reconcile work and family and increase labor market participation. Based on long-term informative data, we find that start-up programs persistently integrate former unemployed women into the labor market, and the impact on fertility is less detrimental than for traditional ALMP programs. KW - Start-up subsidies KW - Evaluation KW - Long-term effects KW - Female labor-force participation KW - Fertility Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00148-015-0540-5 SN - 0933-1433 SN - 1432-1475 VL - 28 IS - 4 SP - 1005 EP - 1043 PB - Springer CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Caliendo, Marco A1 - Künn, Steffen A1 - Uhlendorff, Arne T1 - Earnings exemptions for unemployed workers: The relationship between marginal employment, unemployment duration and job quality JF - Labour economics : an international journal N2 - In some countries including Germany unemployed workers can increase their income by working a few hours per week. The intention is to keep unemployed job seekers attached to the labour market and to increase their job-finding probabilities. To analyze the unemployment dynamics of job seekers with and without marginal employment, we consider an inflow sample into unemployment and estimate multivariate duration models. While we do not find any significant impact on the job finding probability in a model with homogeneous effects, models allowing for time-varying coefficients indicate a decreased job finding probability of marginal employment at the beginning of the unemployment spell and an increased job finding probability for the long-term unemployed. Our results suggest that job seekers with marginal employment find more stable post-unemployment jobs, and we find some evidence that the relationship between marginal employment and wages and employment stability varies with respect to skill levels, sector and labor market tightness. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. KW - Marginal employment KW - Mini-job KW - Unemployment duration KW - Job search KW - Employment stability KW - Multivariate duration models Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2016.07.003 SN - 0927-5371 SN - 1879-1034 VL - 42 SP - 177 EP - 193 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Caliendo, Marco A1 - Künn, Steffen A1 - Weissenberger, Martin T1 - Catching up or lagging behind? BT - the long-term business and innovation potential of subsidized start-ups out of unemployment JF - Research policy : policy, management and economic studies of science, technology and innovation N2 - From an active labor market policy perspective, start-up subsidies for unemployed individuals are very effective in improving long-term labor market outcomes for participants. From a business perspective, however, the assessment of these public programs is less clear since they might attract individuals with low entrepreneurial abilities and produce businesses with low survival rates and little contribution to job creation, economic growth, and innovation. In this paper, we use a rich data set to compare participants of a German start-up subsidy program for unemployed individuals to a group of regular founders who started from non-unemployment and did not receive the subsidy. The data allows us to analyze their business performance up until 40 months after business formation. We find that formerly subsidized founders lag behind not only in survival and job creation, but especially also in innovation activities. The gaps in these business outcomes are relatively constant or even widening over time. Hence, we do not see any indication of catching up in the longer run. While the gap in survival can be entirely explained by initial differences in observable start-up characteristics, the gap in business development remains and seems to be the result of restricted access to capital as well as differential business strategies and dynamics. Considering these conflicting results for the assessment of the subsidy program from an ALMP and business perspective, policy makers need to carefully weigh the costs and benefits of such a strategy to find the right policy mix. KW - entrepreneurship KW - start-up subsidies KW - business growth KW - innovation KW - job KW - creation Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2020.104053 SN - 0048-7333 SN - 1873-7625 VL - 49 IS - 10 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER -