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We report on two nationwide experiments with job seekers in France. We
first show that a meeting with social services to assess eligibility and help with
application to social benefits increased new benefit take-up by 29%. By contrast,
an online simulator that gave personalized information on benefit eligibility
did not increase take-up. Marginal treatment effects show that individuals
who benefit the most from the meetings are the least likely to attend. Overall,
without ruling out information frictions, our results suggest that transaction
costs represent the main obstacle to applying for benefits or accessing government鈥檚
assistance to help apply.
