Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/35175 
Year of Publication: 
2008
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 3437
Publisher: 
Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
This paper examines whether the chances of job placements improve if unemployed persons are counselled by caseworkers who belong to the same social group, defined by gender, age, education, and nationality. Based on an unusually informative dataset, which links Swiss unemployed to their caseworkers, we find positive employment effects of about 4 percentage points if caseworker and unemployed belong to the same social group. Coincidence in a single characteristic, e.g. same gender of caseworker and unemployed, does not lead to detectable effects on employment. These results, obtained by statistical matching methods, are confirmed by several robustness checks.
Subjects: 
Social identity
social interactions
public employment services
unemployment
gender
age
education
treatment effects
matching estimators
JEL: 
J64
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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