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The novelty of the term is the ‘hybrid’ format of the seminar. You are highly encouraged to attend the seminar in person on campus, but under the current circumstances attendance is limited. Please register on the doodle using this link: https://doodle.com/poll/nr58uwf9nfiy2egw. You can also follow the IRES Lunch Seminar via this link on Teams. For non-UCLouvain participants, please email the organizers if you wish to participate. |
Bart Cockx
Ghent University
will give a presentation on
Priority to unemployed immigrants? A causal machine learning evaluation of training in Belgium
Abstract:
Based on administrative data of unemployed in Belgium, we estimate the labour market effects of three training programmes at various aggregation levels using Modified Causal Forests, a causal machine learning estimator. While all programmes have positive effects after the lock-in period, we find substantial heterogeneity across programmes and unemployed. Simulations show that “black-box” rules that reassign unemployed to programmes that maximise estimated individual gains can considerably improve effectiveness: up to 20% more (less) time spent in (un)employment within a 30 months window. A shallow policy tree delivers a simple rule that realizes about 70% of this gain.
joint with Michael Lechner and Joost Bollens