"A major unemployment and welfare benefit reform took place in Germany in 2005. One objective of this reform was to more strongly encourage an adult worker model of the family, with an emphasis on activating the formerly inactive. Our hypothesis is, however, that assignments to activation...

"Unemployment insurance (UI) sanctions in the form of benefit reductions are intended to set disincentives for UI recipients to stay unemployed. Empirical evidence about the effects of UI sanctions in Germany is sparse. Using administrative data we investigate the effects of sanctions on the...

"Unemployment insurance (UI) sanctions in the form of benefit reductions are intended to set disincentives for UI recipients to stay unemployed. Empirical evidence about the effects of UI sanctions in Germany is sparse. Using administrative data we investigate the effects of sanctions on the...

"This paper analyses theoretical effects of minimum wages on employment and the wage distribution under a frictional setting. I review new developments in search theory and discuss the influence of minimum wages on wages and employment under each setting. Thereby, a major theoretical focus of...

"This paper analyses theoretical effects of minimum wages on employment and the wage distribution under a frictional setting. I review new developments in search theory and discuss the influence of minimum wages on wages and employment under each setting. Thereby, a major theoretical focus of...

In this paper we analyze the sources of German unemployment within a structural vector error correction model (SVECM) framework. For this purpose, we propose a method to estimate an exactly identified Subset SVECM, which is a SVECM with short run parameter restrictions. A cointegration analysis...

"Bringing welfare recipients into jobs is a major goal of German labour market policy since a reform of the year 2005. Direct job creation providing participants with temporary subsidized jobs mainly in the non-profit sector plays an important role for achieving this goal. There are three...

"Since 2005, jobless employable individuals have to be available for the labour market with various activation programmes helping them. One major programme is short-term training teaching certain skills or assisting in job search. However, little is known about the effectiveness of such a short...

"Contracting out placement services aims at enhancing the effectiveness of placements of unemployed job-seekers through market mechanisms. This paper analyses the effectiveness of the temporary assignment of needy job-seekers to private placement services by comparing their outcomes with respect...

"This paper estimates for a sample of means-tested unemployment benefit recipients the effects of their participation in short-term training programmes in Germany. We apply propensity score matching and rely on a large sample of treated and controls from administrative data, which in contrast to...