In this paper, we give a short overview of some propensity score matching estimators suggested in the evaluation literature, and we provide a set of Stata programs, which we illustrate using the National Supported Work (NSW) demonstration widely known in labor economics.

From Temporary Help Jobs to Permanent Employment: What CanWe Learn from Matching Estimators and their Sensitivity?*The diffusion of Temporary Work Agency (TWA) jobs originated a harsh policy debate and ambiguous empirical evidence. Results for the US, based on quasi-experimental evidence, suggest that a TWA assignment decreases the probability of finding a stable job, while results for Europe, based on the Conditional Independence Assumption (CIA), typically reach opposite conclusions. Using data for two Italian regions, we use a matching estimator to show that TWA assignments can be an effective springboard to permanent employment. We also propose a simulation-based sensitivity analysis, which highlights that only for one of these two regions our results are robust to specific failures of the CIA. We conclude that European studies based on the CIA should not be automatically discarded, but should be put under the scrutiny of a sensitivity analysis like the one we propose.JEL Classification: C2, C8 and J6

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We would like to thank: the firm that kindly provided its personnel data; Maria Benvenuti for giving us access to her classification of misconduct episodes; Lawrence Katz and Edward Glaeser for suggestions that led to a substantial improvement of the paper;

Employment protection systems are widely believed to generate distortions in firms' hiring and firing decisions. However, much less is known about the impact of these regulations on workers' behavior. In this paper we provide evidence on the latter question using data from a large Italian bank. Our analysis is based on weekly observations for 545 men and 313 females hired as white‐collar workers between January 1993 and February 1995. These workers begin to be protected against firing only after the 12th week of tenure, and we observe them for one year. We show that—particularly for men—the number of days of absence per week increases significantly once employment protection is granted at the end of probation. This suggests that the provision of employment protection causes the increase in absenteeism. Alternative explanations based on career concerns or on learning about social norms would predict a smooth relationship between absenteeism and tenure instead of the observed discrete jump. This consequence of employment protection seems to have been neglected in European policy debates so far. (JEL: J2, D2, D8, M5)

An important component of the long-run cost of a war is the loss of human capital suffered by school-age children who receive less education. Austrian and German individuals who were 10 years old during the conflict, or were more directly involved through their parents, received less education than comparable individuals from nonwar countries, such as Switzerland and Sweden. We also show that these individuals experienced a sizable earnings loss some 40 years after the war, which can be attributed to the educational loss caused by the conflict. The implied consequences in terms of gross domestic product loss are calculated.We would like to thank Joshua Angrist, Michael Burda, David Card, Claudia Goldin, Peter Gottschalk, Guido Imbens, as well as seminar participants in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Firenze, Freiburg, La Coruna, Linz, Milano, Munich, Paris, Regensburg, Vienna, and Warwick for comments and suggestions. Furthermore, we are grateful to M. John and M. Pammer for historical information; A. Bjö rklund, P. A. Edin, M. Gerfin, and John Haisken-De-New for providing us with additional data; and Sascha Becker and Daniela Vuri for excellent research assistance.

Zeldes, seminar participants in many universities and our discussant, Stefania Albanesi, at the 2009 ASSA Meetings for helpful suggestions. The Editor (Alan Auerbach) and two anonymous referees provided very useful comments. Karabarbounis acknowledges financial support from the Neubauer Family Faculty Fund at Chicago Booth. The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

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