High-quality data are the key to evaluating the effectiveness of labor market policies. While administrative datasets provide detailed and reliable information on individual job histories, survey data give insights into individual behavior, attitudes and subjective experiences. A joint project by IZA and IAB (Institute of Employment Research) now combines the “best of both worlds” into the newly available IZA/IAB Linked Evaluation Dataset 1993-2010 (LED).
The dataset contains information on over 15,000 entrants into unemployment (between June 2007 and May 2008) who were interviewed for IZA over the subsequent three years and agreed to have their data matched with their individual employment biographies recorded by the IAB. The dataset is anonymized and individuals cannot be identified.
While the IAB administrative data provide detailed individual-level information on employment, benefit receipt and participation in active labor market programs, the IZA survey data cover a number of individual characteristics that affect search behavior and labor market outcomes.
The LED thus offers new opportunities for empirical labor market research – not only for the evaluation of active labor market policy instruments, such as training programs or wage subsidies, but also for many other aspects of the transition process from unemployment to employment.
More information on data access is available on the IAB and IZA websites:
Contact: idsc@iza.org