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long term unemployment. This is far from unequivocally clear. Apart from its officials goals
ALMP serves many other goals: doing cosmetics on the rate of unemployment, improving
social integration of marginal groups of the labor market, paying unemployment benefits in a
more sensible way. Therefore the effects and success of ALMP may be in different fields then
delineated by the official brochures written by advisors. Hence pursuing ALMP can be a
rational strategy for politicians although these policies do not reach their official goals.
A note of caution is in order: This analysis is based on statistical analyses detecting
correlation. This does not imply necessarily causation. We find evidence for the hypothesis
that EU increases ALMP spending, and OECD does not. And we find that active labor market
policies by EU governments are not more efficient or tend not to reduce badly evaluated
elements in the programs compared to EU countries before the employment strategy and
compared to non-countries. This does not imply that OECD analyses or the common
guidelines of the employment strategy are in vain. For example, there may be processes of
learning, which are not or are not fully grasped in this statistical analysis. For example the
publication of the frequency of sanctions by country may incite some governments to
strengthen the control aspects of the active policy. This is neither reflected in spending nor in
program structures but it may be consequential and efficient. In this paper, I focused on some
measurable aspects of the interplay of OECD, EU and national governments. If found no
effects with regard to these variables. This does not exclude that strong effects may occur
elsewhere.
Convention