Screening Disability Insurance Applications
Philip de Jong1
Maarten Lindeboom2
Bas van der Klaauw3
February 2006
Abstract
This paper investigates the effects of intensified screening of disability insurance benefit
applications. A large-scale experiment was setup where in 2 of the 26 Dutch regions case workers
of the disability insurance administration were instructed to screen applications more intense. The
empirical results show that intense screening reduces long-term sickness absenteeism and
disability insurance applications. This provides evidence both for direct effects of the more
intensive screening on work resumption during sickness absenteeism and for self-screening by
potential disability insurance applicants. We do not find any spillover effects to the inflow into
unemployment insurance. A cost-benefit analysis shows that the costs of the intensified screening
are only a small fraction of its benefits.
1 Aarts, De Jong, Wilms & Goudriaan Public Economics B.V. and University of Amsterdam
2 Free University Amsterdam, Tinbergen Institute, IZA, HEB and Netspar
3 Free University Amsterdam, Tinbergen Institute, Scholar, IFAU, IZA and CEPR.
Address: Department of Economics, Free University Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1105, NL--1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
The authors thank Jonneke Bolhaar for excellent research assistance. We furthermore would like to thank John Bound, Norma Coe
and participants at seminars at Uppsala University and Utrecht University for useful comments and suggestions.
1
1 Introduction
In most OECD countries disability insurance (DI) programs are substantial in size and have
experienced strong growths in the recent decades (OECD, 2003). The Dutch DI program used to
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