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IZA Discussion Paper No. 18509
March 2026
Mitigating Mobility Frictions: The Effect of Cash-on-Hand on Labor Mobility
Karim Bekhtiar, Rudolf Winter-Ebmer

Providing recently laid off workers with cash benefits may help them overcome mobility costs and thereby stimulate labor mobility. On the other hand, cash benefits may dampen the employment shock and reduce the incentive to move. In this paper, we test these two competing mechanisms against each other. For this we use a severance pay regulation in Austria, which generated a sharp cutoff after which workers became eligible to a severance payment of two monthly salaries. Our results indicate that this cash payment increased labor mobility by around 8% to 12%. This increase is much stronger for worker groups with lower baseline mobility rates.

Kommunikation
Mark Fallak
mark.fallak@liser.lu
+352 585-855-526
World of Labour
Olga Nottmeyer
olga.nottmeyer@liser.lu
+352 585-855-501
Netzwerkkoordination
Christina Gathmann
christina.gathmann@liser.lu

Das IZA@LISER-Netzwerk ist eine weltweite Gemeinschaft für exzellente Forschung in der Arbeitsmarktökonomie und angrenzenden Fachgebieten. Nach dem Wechsel von Bonn wird das Netzwerk nun am Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) koordiniert.

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