Today the third issue of Gentse Economische Inzichten (Ghent University Economic Insights) is published. Gentse Economische Inzichten is a forum for the broad societal dissemination of research findings and policy recommendations by professors of the Department of Economics of Ghent University. Given that this forum focusses on the Flemish community, the Gentse Economische Inzichten are published in Dutch.

In this issue, based on recent scientific research, we discuss whether scrapping unemployment benefits for youths accelerates the transition to employment and to graduation.

These are the most important insights:

1. Economists often bet on financial incentives to stimulate people in the direction of socially desirable behaviour. This does not work for everyone and not always well.
2. Scrapping unemployment benefits one year after graduation has no effect whatsoever on low-educated workers’ employment and education outcomes. High educated people graduate faster and find more quickly a job, but that job is only very short-lived.
3. More research is needed to better understand when and why financial incentives don't work, and which are better alternatives. The integration of insights from psychology into economics, such as in behavioral economics, is a promising development.

Read the full third issue of Gentse Economische Inzichten