Bounds Analysis of Competing Risks: A Non-parametric Evaluation of the Effect of Unemployment Benefits on Migration

By reexamining the effect of unemployment benefits on reemployment probabilities we make two contributions to the literature: first, we estimate separate effects for reemployment in the local or a distant region. Second, we address the problem of incomplete duration within a competing risks model. Our results confirm that missing data problems at first preclude any meaningful result even though we have access to daily individual data on 50 % of the male workforce in Germany. When we impose additional assumptions, we obtain evidence that the treatment effect depends on the household context, the treatment intensity and the destination state.