The Value of Early Labor Market Experience: Evidence from a Large-Scale Summer Job Randomization

Last registered on February 05, 2025

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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title

The Value of Early Labor Market Experience: Evidence from a Large-Scale Summer Job Randomization

RCT ID

AEARCTR-0015301

Initial registration date

February 05, 2025

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published

February 05, 2025, 10:00 AM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name

Nils-Petter Lundborg

Affiliation

Lund University

Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status

In development

Start date

2012-01-01

End date

2026-12-31

Keywords

Crime, Violence, & Conflict, Education, Health, Labor

Additional Keywords

JEL code(s)

Secondary IDs

Prior work

This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.

Abstract

This project analyzes data from a natural experiment in which the municipality of Malmö used a lottery to randomly allocate approximately 50,000 summer jobs to high school students between 2012 and 2020. The program provided students with four weeks of paid employment during the summer break, with 6.5-hour workdays. This project will link the lottery data to register-based information on education, labor market participation, and crime, to study the long-term effects of summer jobs on these outcomes. Beyond the direct impact on participants, the project will also investigate potential spillover effects on their siblings and parents.

External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation

Lundborg, Nils-Petter. 2025. "The Value of Early Labor Market Experience: Evidence from a Large-Scale Summer Job Randomization." AEA RCT Registry. February 05. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.15301-1.0

Sponsors & Partners

Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)

The summer jobs program in Malmö provided high school students aged 16–19 with four weeks of paid employment during the summer break, with 6.5-hour workdays. Job placements covered a wide range of sectors, including administration, childcare and youth services, community organizations and recreation, culture, gardening and maintenance, and health and social care. To ensure fairness in allocation, a lottery was used to randomly assign jobs to applicants. The intervention and the lottery were performed by the municipality of Malmö, without the involvement of researchers.

Intervention Start Date

2012-01-01

Intervention End Date

2020-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)

Outcomes for lottery participants and siblings:
Educational outcomes: high-school grades and national test scores, high-school completion, university enrollment, field of study, years of schooling.

Labor outcomes: employment, unemployment, occupation, sector, earnings, social welfare receipt, sick-leave.

Crime outcomes: criminal convictions, including the type of crime (Alcohol- and drug-related crimes, as well as violent crimes).

Outcomes for parents:
Labor outcomes: employment, unemployment, occupation, sector, earnings, social welfare receipt, sick-leave

Crime outcomes: criminal convictions, including the type of crime (Alcohol- and drug-related crimes, as well as violent crimes)

Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)

Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

All youth aged 16–19 attending a high school in the municipality of Malmö were eligible to participate in the summer employment lottery, organized by the municipality. The program has been consistently oversubscribed in every year for which we have data, meaning that the number of applicants has exceeded the available job placements. The municipality therefore used a lottery to allocate the summer jobs. In this project, we use the lottery data maintained by the municipality of Malmö to estimate the causal effect of summer employment on long-term outcomes.

As part of the application process, applicants were asked to specify their preferences regarding various aspects of the summer job, including the time period, job type (e.g., administration, childcare and youth services, community organizations and recreation, culture, gardening and maintenance, and health and social care), and geographical location. The lottery was conducted taking into account each applicant's stated preferences, ensuring that assignments aligned as closely as possible with their preferences.

Experimental Design Details

Not available

Randomization Method

The municipality of Malmö conducted the lottery, with the randomization process carried out by a computer in an office.

Randomization Unit

Individual randomization.

Was the treatment clustered?

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters

No cluster design.

Sample size: planned number of observations

Between 2012 and 2020, a total of 54,442 lottery particants were recorded. Since some pupils participated multiple times, the number of unique participants was 27,757.

Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms

Between 2012 and 2020, a total of 33,872 participants were offered a summer job through the lottery, of whom 32,915 accepted the offer.

Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)

Supporting Documents and Materials

IRB