Die makroökonomische Wirkung aktiver Arbeitsmarktpolitik: eine Panelanalyse auf Ebene regionaler Arbeitsmärkte

This paper investigates the causal effect of regional variation in active labor market policy utilizing data for 176 German employment offices and a period covering 2000-2004. In this endeavor, we also analyze the impact of the recent labor market reforms ('Hartz reforms'). We use flow measures of the labor market as outcomes in a fixed-effects panel model at the level of 91 regional labor markets, which are constructed in an auxiliary step. Data from a survey of all employment offices are analyzed to justify our identification strategy. Empirical results suggest that most policy measures do not exhibit a significant impact on net flows out of (long-term) unemployment and that there are only minor differences between the years before and after the Hartz reforms.