The Role of Caseworkers in Unemployment Insurance: Evidence from Unplanned Absences
利用瑞士失业保险个案工作者计划外缺勤的外生变化，研究发现失业者错过与个案工作者的会面会使失业期延长5%，且影响因工作者生产率而异。
Caseworkers are the main human resources used to provide social services. This paper asks whether and how much caseworkers matter for the outcomes of unemployed individuals. Using large-scale administrative data, I exploit exogenous variation in unplanned absences among Swiss unemployment insurance caseworkers. I find that individuals who lose a meeting with their caseworker stay unemployed 5% longer. Results show large heterogeneity in the personal impact of caseworkers: the effect of a forgone meeting is zero for caseworkers in the lower half of the productivity distribution but is more than twice the average effect for caseworkers in the upper half.