Fostering and supporting start-up businesses by unemployed persons has become an increasingly important issue in many European countries. These new ventures are being supported by various governmental programs. Potential benefits include not only the end of unemployment for the new entrepreneur...

This paper uses a social experiment in labour market policy - providing early and intensive monitoring and programme participation in unemployment spells - to assess the nature of labour market policy effectiveness. The experiment was conducted in two counties in Denmark during the winter of...

Die Ich-AG (Existenzgründungszuschuss) war eines der zentralen Instrumente, das im Rahmen der "Hartz-Reformen" in den arbeitsmarktpolitischen Kanon aufgenommen wurde. Zusammen mit dem bereits seit langem bekannten Überbrückungsgeld wurden damit zwischen 2003 und 2006 mehr als eine Million...

We analyse the effect of active labour-market programmes on the hazard rate into regular employment for newly arrived immigrants using the timing-of-events duration model. We take account of language course participation and progression in destination country language skills. We use rich...

We perform a comprehensive analysis of the stepping-stone effect of temporary agency employment on unemployed workers. Using the timing-of-events approach, we not only investigate whether agency employment is a bridge into regular employment but also analyze its effect on post-unemployment wages...

Turning unemployment into self-employment has become a major focus of German active labour market policy (ALMP) in recent years. If effective, this would not only reduce Germany’s persistently high unemployment rate, but also increase its notoriously low self-employment rate. Empirical...

Support schemes for unemployed aiming for self-employment have been recently reformed several times. In 2003, the "start-up subsidyʺ was added to the existing "bridging allowanceʺ. In 2006 both instruments were merged to the "Gründungszuschussʺ. Since the bridging allowance has been...

Turning unemployment into self-employment has become an increasingly important part of active labor market policies (ALMP) in many OECD countries. Germany is a good example where the spending on start-up subsidies for the unemployed accounted for nearly 17% of the total spending on ALMP in 2004....

Randomized experiments provide policy relevant treatment effects if there are no spillovers between participants and nonparticipants. We show that this assumption is violated for a Danish activation program for unemployed workers. Using a difference-in-difference model we show that the...

Labor market programs may affect unemployed individuals' behavior before they enroll. Such ex ante effects may differ according to ethnic origin. We apply a novel method that relates self-reported perceived treatment rates and job search behavioral outcomes, such as the reservation wage or...