The quasi-market of employment services in Italy

This paper aims to study pros and cons of the first experiment of quasi-market in the provision of employment services in Italy: the Lombardy DUL (Dote Unica Lavoro). The program, which has inspired the 2015 national reform within the Jobs Act and lines towards the recent experience of several Anglo-Saxon countries, has revitalized the sector by providing important job opportunities to jobless workers. We find the typical problems of quasi-markets (lion’s share of private organizations; cherry picking; gaming and asymmetric information). However, different expedients were devised in the program to minimize these shortcomings. The empirical analysis suggest that such phenomena are at a physiological level. Analysis of the determinants of completing successfully the program provides non-trivial results as to, among others, the role of organizations of different ownership type and of the type of services provided. On these we base our policy advice.