The main goal of this study is to infer the causal effects of human capital operational programme (HCOP) interventions on the Romanian labor market to provide information about the efficiency of a European investment instrument. Using survey data collected from participants and nonparticipants in EU-funded active labour market programmes (ALMP) in Romania, we find that such support measures had limited effects on obtaining employment in the 2018–2023 period. The diversity of the results among vulnerable subgroups reiterates the conclusion that the target group is an important aspect that explains the efficiency of ALMP. Our research indicates that participating in ALMPs provided by HCOP has been at least as effective as registering with public employment services and receiving regular employment support in the first 6 months. A sensitivity analysis based on E-values indicates that the estimated effects are relatively robust to potential unmeasured confounding. This research contributes to the consolidation of the scarce literature debating the effects of active labor market programmes in Eastern European countries. Furthermore, our investigation proves the efficiency of a new method of causal inference analysis within this topic, namely, the covariate balancing propensity score. This method minimizes covariate imbalance directly rather than minimizing prediction error. © 2025 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
Author Keywords
Index Keywords
