Jan van Ours

In the 1990s, Jan van Ours has conducted extensive research on the topics of job search and job matching. Together with Geert Ridder, he finds that most vacancies are filled from a pool of job searchers shortly after the vacancy's posting, implying that vacancy durations reflect the duration of employers' selection process rather than applicants' search periods.[10] Importantly, this pool not only includes unemployed but also employed job searchers,[11] though less educated and higher educated job searchers don't tend to compete for the same jobs.[12] Moreover, with Martin Lindeboom and Gusta Renes, van Ours finds important differences between the effectiveness of search channels: whereas employment offices are effective in matching unemployed workers, advertisements are effective for employed workers, and informal search channels are effective in both cases.[13] Finally, comparing labour and job turnover, van Ours, Daniel Hamermesh and Wolter Hassink find that most mobility is not to new nor from destroyed jobs but rather into and out of existing jobs, firms with declining employment hire a lot and firms with expanding employment fire a lot, worker turnover is much larger than job turnover, and simultaneous hiring and firing exists. [14]

Another area of van Ours' research are the economics of unemployment insurance, benefits and active labour market policies. In the Netherlands, van Ours, Gerard van den Berg and Jaap Abbring find that reductions of unemployed persons' benefits for failing to meet search requirements are effective in raising individual re-employment rates.[15][16] This finding is also substantiated by van Ours' research with Rafael Lalive and Josef Zweimüller on Switzerland, wherein warnings and enforcement are found to increase unemployment outflows both towards employment and out-of-the labour force and actual benefit reductions lower the quality of post-unemployment jobs in terms of duration and earnings. Moreover, stricter monitoring of eligibility requirements reduces the unemployment durations of the non-sanctioned as well as their earnings.[17][18] Further research by van Ours with Lalive and Zweimüller on Austria has highlighted the role of behavioural responses by the unemployed to changes in their financial incentives, e.g. increases in unemployment durations in response to higher benefit replacement rates.[19][20] Additionally, research with Milan Vodopivec on Slovenia also finds that reducing the potential duration of unemployment benefits increases unemployment outflows but doesn't affect the quality of job matches in terms of wages, contract type or match duration.[21][22]

Analysing the impact of ALMPs in Switzerland, van Ours, Lalive and Zweimüller find some evidence that temporary subsidised job may reduce unemployment duration, whereas training and employment programmes don't.[23] By contrast, van Ours and Graversen find mandatory activation programmes in Denmark to be very effective with regard to reducing unemployment duration, possibly because more intensive contacts between the unemployed and public placement services.[24] Finally, van Ours and Jan Boone find evidence suggesting that labour market training is effective in reducing unemployment, whereas public employment services and job subsidization aren't.[25][26]

Other research on labour economics by van Ours has dealt with topics such as the relationship between unemployment,[27][28] part-time work, education, age, employment protection. Analysing the relationship between unemployment, labour market institutions and labour market reforms with Michèle Belot, van Ours show that particular combinations of labour market institutions are effective in terms of lowering unemployment rates.[29][30] Investigating the effects of working hours on satisfaction with Alison Booth, van Ours finds that neither men's nor women's life satisfaction is affected by their hours of work, though men's hours-of-work satisfaction is highest for full-time jobs and that of women is highest for part-time jobs of any size, in line with theories linking family happiness with work patterns conforming to traditional gender identities.[31] [32] In research with Lenny Stoeldraijer, van Ours finds no evidence of an age related pay-productivity gap in Dutch manufacturing.[33] Studying the educational attainment of second-generation immigrants in the Netherlands together with Justus Veenman, they conclude that differences in the level of education of their parents are driving the differences in educational attainment between second-generation immigrants and native Dutch people.[34] Finally, another important research finding of van Ours' work with Belot and Boone is that employment protection may be welfare-improving, though the optimal level of employment protection is mediated by labour market features such as workers' relative bargaining power and wage rigidities (e.g. minimum wages).[35]