New working paper with Marios Michaelides and Peter Mueser

"Do Reemployment Programs for the Unemployed Work for Youth? Evidence from the Great Recession in the United States"

Abstract
We present experimental evidence on the effects of four U.S. reemployment programs for youth Unemployment Insurance (UI) recipients during the Great Recession. The three programs that emphasized monitoring and service referrals reduced UI receipt but had minimal effects on employment and earnings; these programs mainly induced the early exit of participants. The fourth program, which combined mandatory job counseling with monitoring, caused the largest reductions in UI receipt and clearly increased employment and earnings. Both early participant exits and effective job counseling underlie these impacts. We conclude that policymakers should require job counseling for youth UI recipients during recessions.

IZA Discussion Paper No. 13324.

----------------------------------------------------

Marios did his doctorate in economics at Maryland - I would likely have served on his committee had I stayed in 2005 rather than going to Michigan.

The paper is already accepted at Economic Inquiry as we did their "accept or reject" option as one of us is coming up for tenure soon. Even though we do not have to under that option, we are still responding to some of the reviewer comments.