This paper quantifies the impact of the Hartz reforms on matching efficiency, using monthly SOEP gross worker flows (1983-2009). We show that, until the early 2000s, close to 60% of changes in the unemployment rate are due to changes in the inflow rate (job separation). On the contrary, since...

Similar to numerous other European countries, Germany's unemployment policy went through a paradigm shift in 2005, towards activation policy by tightening their monitoring and sanction regime. With our study, we aim to provide causal evidence for whether an intended positive effect of benefit...

Similar to many other European countries, Germany's unemployment policy made a paradigm shift towards activation policy with a tightened monitoring and sanction regime. In our analysis, we examine the impact of benefit sanctions on the probability of getting employed or leaving the labor force....

Similar to numerous other European countries, Germany's unemployment policy went through a paradigm shift towards activation policy by tightening their monitoring and sanction regime. In our study we examine the impact of benefit sanctions on the probability of getting employed or leaving the...

Research since Gary Becker equated specific human capital with firm-specific human capital. This paper divides firm human capital into a specific and a general component to investigate the relationships between firm- and occupation-specific human capital and job switches. Applying the task-based...

High rates of unemployment entail substantial costs to the working population in terms of reduced subjective well-being. This paper studies the importance of individual economic security, in particular job security, in workers' well-being by exploiting sectorspecific institutional differences in...

This study investigates the incidence of overeducation among workers in the EU and its underlying factors based on the most recent wave of the European Labor Force Survey (EU-LFS 2013). Its main purpose is to shed light on the interplay of so far neglected explanatory factors such as household...

We evaluate a wage subsidy program that is targeted at long-term unemployed workers in Germany. We use an alternative identification procedure compared to empirical studies con­ducted so far. Exploiting the particular program regulations and large administrative data we estimate the impact of...

This paper examines the question, whether the growing use of new technologies and decentralized forms of work organization affects the age structure of workforces within firms. The initial idea behind this relationship is that technological and organizational change may not only be skill-biased,...

This paper examines the predictive power of different estimation approaches for reservation wages. It applies stochastic frontier models for employed workers and the approach from Kiefer and Neumann (1979b) for unemployed workers. Furthermore, the question of whether or not reservation wages...