We evaluate a wage subsidy program that is targeted at long-term unemployed workers in Germany. We use an alternative identification procedure compared to empirical studies conducted so far. Exploiting the particular program regulations and large administrative data we estimate the impact of program availability using a regression discontinuity framework. Our results suggest no significant impact of the availability of the subsidy on labor market outcomes of the target group. Even though our analysis lacks some statistical power, our findings do not support the substantial positive effects obtained from matching studies. As our approach does not require observability of all drivers of selection, previous empirical studies justifying government expenditures on wage subsidies based on matching methods should be reconsidered. Url or DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/geer.12040 Authors Benjamin Schünemann Michael Lechner Conny Wunsch Country Germany Publication Year 2016 Ranges Intervention Intervention Start Year 2000 Intervention End Year 2001 Evaluation Evaluation Start Year 2000 Evaluation End Year 2002 Policy field Employment incentives Private sector employment incentives Target group Labour market status Long term unemployed Unemployed (All cat.) Details Funding Source Other Outcome Variable Employment status Data Source Administrative Evaluation Method DID RDD
