How efficient are municipalities in activating cash-help recipients in Denmark

Previous studies do not analyse activation starts as the parameter of interest in evaluating labour market programs. In this paper we evaluate municipality ability to activate cash-help recipients, which helps recipients gain the necessary skills vital to future regular employment in Denmark. A Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) bootstrap approach contributes to the DEA literature by evaluating a new subject, which is the relative productive activation participation efficiency for a population of Danish municipalities in 2001. The main results indicate that municipality active labour market policy (ALMP) practices and organisation can only determine activation participation to a certain extent because unemployed cash-help recipient ability affects participation in activation. Municipalities can improve activation efficiency levels in the future by emulating the efficient municipalities that have a similar social and economic structure or through technological innovation developed through cooperation with other institutions.