Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/232609 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 13857
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We study how active labor market policies affect the exchange of information and support among jobseekers. Leveraging a unique social network survey in Ethiopia, we find that a randomized job-search assistance intervention reduces information sharing and support between treated jobseekers and their active job-search partners. Due to lower job-search support, untreated individuals search less and, suggestively, have worse employment outcomes. These results are explained by a model of networks where unemployed individuals form job-search partnerships to exploit the complementarities of job search. These partnerships are broken if policy creates inequality in the access to information about job vacancies.
Subjects: 
job search
social networks
RCT
active labor market policies
JEL: 
D85
L14
O12
J64
D8
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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