TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Behncke, Stefanie
AU  - Frölich, Markus
AU  - Lechner, Michael
        TI  - A Caseworker Like Me: Does the Similarity between Unemployed and Caseworker Increase Job Placements?
        PY  - 2008/Apr/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 3437
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/publications/dp3437
        AB  - 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.
        KW  - treatment effects
KW  - education
KW  - social identity
KW  - social interactions
KW  - public employment services
KW  - unemployment
KW  - gender
KW  - age
KW  - matching estimators
        ER  -