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. Classification-JEL: J28; J65 Keywords: disability insurance; sickness absenteeism; policy evaluation; self-screening; experiment File-Url: https://papers.tinbergen.nl/06018.pdf File-Format: application/pdf File-Size: 190022 bytes Handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20060018