Self-regulation Training and Job Search Behavior: A Natural Field Experiment Within an Active Labor Market Program

Abstract

Recent evidence suggests that self-regulation abilities play an important role for the job finding success of unemployed persons. We conduct a randomized controlled trial embedded in an established labor market reactivation program to examine the effect of a self-regulation training on job search effort of long-term unemployed participants. Our treatment involves teaching a self-regulation strategy based on mental contrasting with implementation intentions. We find that the treatment has a positive effect on the quality of application documents as well as on the probability of participants submitting their documents on time. However, we do not find a significant positive effect on labor market reintegration. We discuss several reasons for this null finding and conduct further exploratory analyses to learn about heterogeneous treatment effects.