Does the unemployment benefit institution affect the productivity of workers? Evidence from a field experiment 2010-2015

Dataset is comprised of experimental outcomes and observational data. The project investigates whether and how the type of unemployment benefit institution affects productivity. We designed a field experiment to compare workers’ productivity under a welfare system, where the unemployed receive an unconditional monetary transfer, with their productivity under a workfare system, where the transfer is received conditional on the unemployed spending some time on ancillary activities. Over 300 subjects signed up for the experiment and were employed as research assistants to code newspapers. They remained employed based on their subsequent productivity.