Take-up of Social Benefits: Experimental Evidence from France
在法国开展的两项全国性实验发现，与社会服务部门的面谈使福利领取率提高29%，而在线模拟器无效；交易成本是主要障碍。
We report on two nationwide experiments with job seekers in France. We first show that a meeting with social services to assess eligibility and help with applications to social benefits increased new benefit take-up by 29 percent. By contrast, an online simulator that gave personalized information on benefit eligibility did not increase take-up. Marginal treatment effects show that individuals who benefit the most from the meetings are the least likely to attend. Overall, without ruling out information frictions, our results suggest that transaction costs represent the main obstacle to applying for benefits or accessing government’s assistance in applying.