The quasi-market of employment services in Italy

摘要

This paper aims to study pros and cons of the first experiment of quasi-market in the provision of employment services in Italy: the Lombardy DUL (Dote Unica Lavoro). The program, which has inspired the 2015 national reform within the Jobs Act and lines towards the recent experience of several Anglo-Saxon countries, has revitalized the sector by providing important job opportunities to jobless workers. We find the typical problems of quasi-markets (lion's share of private organizations; cherry picking; gaming and asymmetric information). However, different expedients were devised in the program to minimize these shortcomings. The empirical analysis suggest that such phenomena are at a physiological level. Analysis of the determinants of completing successfully the program provides non-trivial results as to, among others, the role of organizations of different ownership type and of the type of services provided. On these we base our policy advice. (C) 2019 The Society for Policy Modeling. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.