Technocratic Decision-Making in Times of Crisis? The Use of Data for Scientific Policy Advice in Germany’s COVID-19 Management

Public Organization Review - COVID-19 has demonstrated the importance of data for scientific policy advice. Mechanisms by which data is generated, shared, and ultimately lead to policy responses...     

The Work Profiler: Revision and maintenance of a profiling tool for the recently unemployed in the Netherlands

For the public employment services of many Member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the importance of using profiling tools for job seekers is increasing rapidly in importance. With this trend, there is also widening concern about the risks of an over reliance on such tools. Part of the concern lies with a lack of transparency concerning how such tools work. This article aims to address this by offering a detailed investigation of the Work Profiler – the instrument used in the Netherlands by the Institute for Employee Benefits (Uitvoeringsinstituut Werknemersverzekeringen – UWV) to predict re-employment success and provide a diagnosis of key factors hindering job seekers’ return to work. Professionals use these insights to deepen their understanding of the situation of job seekers and decide together with job seekers how to support their return to work. UWV decided to maintain and revise the Work Profiler through a large-scale study involving a sample of 53,238 people. Work Profiler 1.0 was developed in 2007–2010 and has been in use on a regional basis since 2011 and nationwide since 2015. This article explains how the new tool (version 2.0; implemented in 2018) works and, most importantly, demonstrates the choices made to ensure that it functions well and is used effectively by professionals. These latter two aspects are rarely discussed in the literature.     

Testing for the Price- and Wage-Setting Model in Belgium Using Multivariate Cointegration Tests

Using multivariate cointegration tests based on Johansen's approach, this paper tests for the existence of long-run relationships between real wages and other explaining variables in Belgium. We retain two cointegrating vectors which can refer to wage and price setting behaviours.