Labour market programs and the Australian beveridge curve: 1978 to 1997

Labour market programs are often advocated on the basis that by re-introduc ing unemployed people to the culture of the workplace, they will re-skill a nd motivate them enough to make them suitable employees to prospective empl oyers. Accordingly, total employment should rise and vacancy rates fall. if programs work in this manner, we should be able to detect a systematic rel ationship between labour market program expenditure and the distance of the Beveridge curve from the origin ceteris paribus. There are fe studies in t he world that have directly tried to assess the impact of labour market pro gram expenditure on the Beveridge curve. Our estimates for Australia over t he East 19 years give limited support to the view that most labour market p rograms have moved the Beveridge curve inwards.