Assessing Active Labour Market Policies in Transition Economies

In Central and Eastern Europe, where the transition from a centrally planned economy to an economy dominated by market forces started in the early 1990s, some important studies on the efficacy of ALMP have been undertaken. Our chapter gives a brief history of the evaluation of ALMP in transition countries, pointing to both the macroeconometric and the microeconometric approach, which should be understood as complimentary tools. We finish our contribution by discussing those studies that have been instrumental in improving our understanding of the functioning of labor markets in transition. This discussion is accompanied by a presentation of the inherent difficulties in program evaluation