Swiss policy makers created a unique link between unemployment benefits and Active Labor Market Programs (ALMPs) by making benefit payments conditional on program attendance after 7 months of unemployment duration. We evaluate the effect of Active Labor Market Programs and benefit entitlement on the duration of unemployment in Switzerland. In the evaluation we allow for selectivity affecting the inflow into programs. Our results indicate that (i) After ALMP-participation the transition rate to jobs increases for Swiss women but not for Swiss men. However, the job hazard rate is strongly reduced during participation. Taken together, this leads to the conclusion that programs prolong unemployment duration for men, but tend to shorten durations for women. (ii) Once the unemployment spell approaches the expiration of unconditional benefit entitlement the job-hazard rate increases strongly, both for women and for men. (iii) There are important selectivity effects for Swiss females, but not for Swiss males.

This volume examines the impact that the financing and administration systems of labor market policy have on the design of national policies concerning the unemployed. The authors investigated labor market policy in six countries--Austria, France, Federal Republic of Germany. Great Britain, Sweden, and the United States--and determined that the distribution of responsibility for labor market programs, the financing of these programs, and the procedures for determining issues and expenditures differ markedly from country to country. The authors explore how the same economic causes--price changes, technological rationalization, new products--can have very different labor market effects because of institutional factors, such as the job-search behavior of the unemployed, the mobility of the employed, the hiring practices of firms, wage negotiations between trade unions and employers, and the employment policies of different levels of government and their impact on the behavior of labor market forces. Unemployment Insurance and Active Labor Market Policy answers the questions: how much public funding do the unemployed receive in wage-replacement benefits and for how long; how much public funding is devoted for manpower programs and invested in "active" labor market policy; and finally, how are the necessary financial resources made available? In summary, the book investigates the relationship between the financing system and revenues and expenditures for labor market policy, the role played by market policy in employment policy as a whole, and the impact of the financing system for labor market policy on the classical goals of the welfare state. The findings of this comprehensive study should contribute to the redeployment of financial resources from those funds currently being used to finance unemployment (unemployment benefits, unemployment assistance, and public assistance) to financing employment.