title: Evaluating the effectiveness of Washington state repeated job search services on the employment rate of prime-age female welfare recipients.
abstract: This paper uses an unbalanced panel dataset to evaluate how repeated job search services (JSS) and personal characteristics affect the employment rate of the prime-age female welfare recipients in the State of Washington. We propose a transition probability model to take into account issues of sample attrition, sample refreshment and duration dependence. We also generalize Honoré and Kyriazidou's [Honoré, B.E., Kyriazidou, E., 2000. Panel data discrete choice models with lagged dependent variables. Econometrica 68 (4), 839-874] conditional maximum likelihood estimator to allow for the presence of individual-specific effects. A limited information test is suggested to test for selection issues in non-experimental data. The specification tests indicate that the (conditional on the set of the confounding variables considered) assumptions of no selection due to unobservables and/or no unobserved individual-specific effects are not violated. Our findings indicate that the first job search service does have positive and significant impacts on the employment rate. However, providing repeated JSS to the same client has no significant impact. Further, we find that there are significant experience-enhancing effects. These findings suggest that providing one job search services training to individuals may have a lasting impact on raising their employment rates.
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics, University of Southern California, CA 90089-0253, United States ; Department of Economics and Finance, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Cheng
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hsiao
authors.affiliation: China Center for Economic Research, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, PR China.
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.affiliation: Department of Social and Health Services, Research and Data Analysis, PO Box 45204, Olympia, WA 98504-5204, United States.
authors.forename: Boqing
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Employment and Security Department, Labor Market and Economic Analysis Branch, PO Box 9046, Olympia, WA 98504-9046, United States.
authors.forename: Greg
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Weeks
keywords: Conditional independence; Conditional maximum likelihood estimator; Repeated job search services; Transition probability