Selection at the Frontline: Experimental Evidence on the Effect of Clients' Attributes on Assignment of Active Labour Market Programmes

ABSTRACT Research on active labour market programmes (ALMPs) suggests the existence of selection and access biases. This article addresses one potential source of such biases: frontline caseworkers' allocation decisions. To investigate how client attributes affect allocation of ALMPs to young clients with reduced work capability, we conducted a pre‐registered factorial survey experiment among Norwegian caseworkers in the public employment service. We test hypotheses derived from the notion of positive and negative selection into ALMPs based on clients' perceived employment prospects and ability to successfully complete programmes. We find that caseworkers' selection of clients into ALMPs occurs primarily based on personal characteristics (i.e., competence, motivation and reliability) and that perceived employability substantially explains these effects. By contrast, clients' immigrant background and health‐related characteristics had limited impact on caseworkers' allocation of ALMPs.