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Impact of the Mutual Obligation Initiative on the Exit Behaviour of Unemployment Benefit Recipients: The Threat of Additional Activities[Note 1. I am grateful for suggestions from two anonymous referees, ...]
Author(s) -
Richardson Linda L.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
economic record
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.365
H-Index - 42
eISSN - 1475-4932
pISSN - 0013-0249
DOI - 10.1111/1475-4932.00067
Subject(s) - obligation , receipt , payment , unemployment , work (physics) , business , actuarial science , demographic economics , public economics , labour economics , economics , finance , economic growth , accounting , political science , law , mechanical engineering , engineering
The Mutual Obligation Initiative requires young unemployment benefit recipients, who have received payments for 6 months, to undertake an activity, in addition to continuing to look for work, in return for those payments. The fact that eligibility for the Mutual Obligation Initiative is determined by age is exploited to evaluate the impact of this program on exit rates from benefit receipt as a natural experiment. Administrative data from the Department of Family and Community Services provides some evidence that individuals subject to the Mutual Obligation Initiative had higher exit rates immediately prior to imposition of the additional activity requirement.