The impact of labour market reforms and economic performance on the matching of short-term and long-term unemployed

As a reaction on high and persistent unemployment in Germany, the largest labour market reforms in post-war history were implemented between 2003 and 2005. We analyse the impact of the reform and its coincidence with an economic expansion on the efficiency of matching out of unemployment. Especially focussing on searcher heterogeneity, we estimate a system of simultaneous stock-flow matching functions for short-term and long-term unemployment (3SLS) on the basis of administrative data. In sum, matching efficiency accelerated for the short-term and particularly the long-term unemployed although we cannot rule out a slight negative effect of the reformation of the unemployment benefit system for the short-term unemployed. A tighten relationship between the business cycle and the matching efficiency during the latest economic expansion could not be proven.