"Programme administration is a relatively neglected issue in the analysis of disincentive effects of unemployment benefit systems. We investigate this issue with a field experiment in Hungary involving random assignment of benefit claimants to treatment and control groups. Treatment increases the monitoring of claims — claimants make more frequent visits to the employment office and face questioning about their search behaviour. Treatment has quite a large effect on durations on benefit of women aged 30 and over, while we find no effect for younger women or men."

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