Evaluating Public Employment Programs with Field Experiments: A Survey of American Evidence

This paper summarizes 40 years of randomized controlled trials (RCT) field experiments on programs and interventions in the unemployment insurance (UI) system to mitigate work disincentives and to help laborers reenter the job market. It is well known that unemployment insurance discourages people from quickly finding a new job if they are unemployed. However, interventions like reemployment bonuses, stronger work-search requirements, and job search assistance significantly decrease time spent without a job while being cost-effective. Hiring incentives for employers and removing the work test, on the other hand, are ineffective. The numerous experiments in the paper can offer strategies for combatting UI’s moral hazard to lower the time people spend unemployed.