How Effective Are Active Labor Market Policies in Developing Countries? A Critical Review of Recent Evidence

Jobs are the primary policy concern of policymakers in many countries. The 2007–2008 global financial crisis, rising demographic pressures, high unemployment rates, and concerns over automation all make it seem imperative that policymakers employ increasingly more active labor market policies. This...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author:	McKenzie, David
Format:	Journal Article
Published:	Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank 2019
Subjects:	LABOR MARKET LABOR POLICY LABOR REGULATION VOCATIONAL TRAINING WAGE SUBSIDY JOB SEARCH ASSISTANCE
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31220

id	okr-10986-31220
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-312202021-05-25T10:54:36Z How Effective Are Active Labor Market Policies in Developing Countries? A Critical Review of Recent Evidence McKenzie, David LABOR MARKET LABOR POLICY LABOR REGULATION VOCATIONAL TRAINING WAGE SUBSIDY JOB SEARCH ASSISTANCE Jobs are the primary policy concern of policymakers in many countries. The 2007–2008 global financial crisis, rising demographic pressures, high unemployment rates, and concerns over automation all make it seem imperative that policymakers employ increasingly more active labor market policies. This paper critically examines recent evaluations of labor market policies that have provided vocational training, wage subsidies, job search assistance, and assistance moving to argue that many active labor market policies are much less effective than policymakers typically assume. Many of these evaluations find no significant impacts on either employment or earnings. One reason is that urban labor markets appear to work reasonably well in many cases, with fewer market failures than is often thought. As a result, there is less of a role for many traditional active labor market policies than is common practice. The review discusses examples of job-creation policies that do seem to offer promise, and concludes with lessons for impact evaluation and policy is this area. 2019-02-05T17:03:29Z 2019-02-05T17:03:29Z 2017-08-01 Journal Article World Bank Research Observer 1564-6971 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31220 CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank Publications & Research :: Journal Article Publications & Research
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
topic	LABOR MARKET LABOR POLICY LABOR REGULATION VOCATIONAL TRAINING WAGE SUBSIDY JOB SEARCH ASSISTANCE
spellingShingle	LABOR MARKET LABOR POLICY LABOR REGULATION VOCATIONAL TRAINING WAGE SUBSIDY JOB SEARCH ASSISTANCE McKenzie, David How Effective Are Active Labor Market Policies in Developing Countries? A Critical Review of Recent Evidence
description	Jobs are the primary policy concern of policymakers in many countries. The 2007–2008 global financial crisis, rising demographic pressures, high unemployment rates, and concerns over automation all make it seem imperative that policymakers employ increasingly more active labor market policies. This paper critically examines recent evaluations of labor market policies that have provided vocational training, wage subsidies, job search assistance, and assistance moving to argue that many active labor market policies are much less effective than policymakers typically assume. Many of these evaluations find no significant impacts on either employment or earnings. One reason is that urban labor markets appear to work reasonably well in many cases, with fewer market failures than is often thought. As a result, there is less of a role for many traditional active labor market policies than is common practice. The review discusses examples of job-creation policies that do seem to offer promise, and concludes with lessons for impact evaluation and policy is this area.
format	Journal Article
author	McKenzie, David
author_facet	McKenzie, David
author_sort	McKenzie, David
title	How Effective Are Active Labor Market Policies in Developing Countries? A Critical Review of Recent Evidence
title_short	How Effective Are Active Labor Market Policies in Developing Countries? A Critical Review of Recent Evidence
title_full	How Effective Are Active Labor Market Policies in Developing Countries? A Critical Review of Recent Evidence
title_fullStr	How Effective Are Active Labor Market Policies in Developing Countries? A Critical Review of Recent Evidence
title_full_unstemmed	How Effective Are Active Labor Market Policies in Developing Countries? A Critical Review of Recent Evidence
title_sort	how effective are active labor market policies in developing countries? a critical review of recent evidence
publisher	Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank
publishDate	2019
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31220
_version_	1764473822475452416

How Effective Are Active Labor Market Policies in Developing Countries? A Critical Review of Recent Evidence

Similar Items