Learn more about LISER’s departments, shaping our contributions to societal and scientific challenges.

Discover research that examines key challenges in employment, economic trends and social dynamics within the labour market, offering valuable insights into these important areas.

Living Conditions

Engage with research that investigates the factors influencing living standards, with a focus on income distribution, housing conditions and social inclusion, providing evidence-based insights into these crucial areas.

Urban Development and Mobility

Studies urban dynamics to identify pathways of actors to stimulate sustainable urban transitions.

Appel à Communications: Les relations industrielles dans un monde du travail en mutation

Learn more about our cross-departmental programmes, which combine interdisciplinary expertise to tackle transversal challenges.

Crossing Borders

Discover how our research into the complexities of cross-border mobility is advancing knowledge, shaping policy, benefiting society and addressing global challenges.

Health and Health Systems

Engage with research dedicated to enhancing public health, improving healthcare accessibility, and promoting equitable and efficient health solutions at a global scale.

Discover LISER's initiatives, driving scientific progress and fostering meaningful collaborations with stakeholders.

Doctoral programmes

Meet a dynamic community of researchers addressing critical societal challenges through innovative and interdisciplinary studies. Our doctoral programme offers exceptional training, mentorship and opportunities to shape impactful policies and drive innovation in diverse fields.

Data Science and Simulation

The Centre of Competence for Data Science and Simulation (DSS) is a cross-departmental initiative. Our ambition is to develop infrastructure, tools and competences in in machine learning, big data, microsimulation and geoexperimentation to conduct excellent research and advise policy-makers as well as stakeholders.

cc-EXPAR - Competence Centre in Experimental and Participatory Research

The Competence Centre in Experimental and Participatory Research (EXPAR) is a cross-departmental initiative. Our ambition is to improve awareness of and skills in experimental and participatory research methods to strengthen LISER’s position at the forefront of internationally high quality, scientifically rigorous and societally relevant research.

Labour Market

Topic: Policy evaluation

Policy evaluation assesses the effect of public programs on participants' socio-economic outcomes in the fields of labor, education, health, family and socio-economic policies. To retrieve causal effects, it relies on counterfactual methods that compare treated and untreated groups while accounting for confounding factors.

About the topic

Policy evaluation produces rigorous evidence on what works, for whom, and under which conditions. It connects policy interventions to data, people and outcomes, asking whether a policy changes lives, how its effects arise, who experiences them, and whether results carry over to other settings.

Our work spans labour markets, skills, technological change, family policy, public finance and institutional performance. Across these areas, we keep one question in view: what changes when policy meets real institutions and inequalities across the life course? Ongoing projects include, among others, the labour-market effects of AI exposure in Luxembourg, municipal defaults and political selection in Italy, access to vocational training in Senegal, and parental leave and mothers’ wages in Luxembourg. Alongside these, a dedicated methodological programme develops new tools for causal inference.

Objectives

Our aim is to estimate the causal effects of policies and interventions using rigorous research designs. Beyond average effects, we identify who gains and who loses, and how effects vary across workers, firms, population groups and institutional settings. We also seek to understand the mechanisms and channels through which policies produce their effects, to assess how these effects change over time, and to test whether they hold across specifications and contexts. Alongside this applied work, we develop and refine causal-inference methods that strengthen evaluation practice. Ultimately, we turn evidence into policy learning that informs programme design, targeting, implementation and periodic review.

Research methodologies

Our work relies on causal designs such as difference-in-differences, natural experiments, instrumental variables and other quasi-experimental approaches. We combine these with current causal and machine-learning methods, which allow flexible estimation and the analysis of heterogeneous effects. Causal mediation analysis helps us understand how, and through which channels, policies generate their effects. Rather than relying on averages alone, we examine distributional and group-specific effects. These analyses draw on rich administrative, survey, geocoded and digital data, including matched employer–employee records and web-derived measures.

Key Topic contributors

Andrea Albanese

Research Scientist

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Research portal

Topics:

Policy evaluation Migration+2 more

Michela Bia

Research Scientist

Connect with me:

Research portal

Topics:

Policy evaluation

Christina Gathmann

Department Director

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Research portal

Michel Tenikue

Research Scientist

Connect with me:

Research portal

Topics:

Policy evaluation

Other research activities

SYNERGIX

Systemic firm transformation determined by green and digital innovations: what are the key X-drivers behind this change?

SYNERGIX examines which firms adopt AI and green technology, what drives these decisions, and how adoption affects productivity, organisational structure, workforce skills and wages. It uses rich Norwegian administrative data, and the findings are relevant to Luxembourg as a similar small, high-income economy that adopts new technologies.

Michela Bia (PI), Christina Gathmann, Natella Agikyan, Terry Gregory, Martin Huber (University of Fribourg, steering committee), Georg Graetz (Uppsala University, steering committee)

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Labour Market

Topic: Policy evaluation

About the topic

Objectives

Research methodologies

Key Topic contributors

Andrea Albanese

Research Scientist

Connect with me:

Research portal

Topics:

Policy evaluation Migration+2 more

Michela Bia

Research Scientist

Connect with me:

Research portal

Topics:

Policy evaluation

Christina Gathmann

Department Director

Connect with me:

Research portal

Michel Tenikue

Research Scientist

Connect with me:

Research portal

Topics:

Policy evaluation

Other research activities

SYNERGIX

Systemic firm transformation determined by green and digital innovations: what are the key X-drivers behind this change?

Michela Bia (PI), Christina Gathmann, Natella Agikyan, Terry Gregory, Martin Huber (University of Fribourg, steering committee), Georg Graetz (Uppsala University, steering committee)

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IMPACT-AI combines machine learning and natural language processing with large firm-level datasets to map how AI adoption spreads across regions and industries. It then estimates the effects on market concentration, wages and spillovers among firms, including start-ups.

CAME develops new causal-inference methods that combine causal mediation analysis with machine learning, to identify the mechanisms through which policies produce their effects. Applications include genetic instruments in the UK “Understanding Society” data and a doubly robust sample-selection correction applied to the US Job Corps training programme.

CIRCUSTAIN assesses the environmental, economic and social sustainability of circular economy practices, focusing on PVC in the construction sector. It also captures linked effects such as workers’ health and rebound effects from job creation.

AILES examines how the diffusion of AI between 2018 and 2026 is reshaping employment, occupations and skills across economic sectors in Luxembourg, and which groups of workers are most affected. The results will provide a forward-looking diagnosis to help public policy anticipate future needs in employment, skills and training.