Our paper estimates the average effect of wage subsidies – paid to employers for a limited period of time – on the labour market prospects of needy job-seekers without access to insurance-paid 'unemployment benefit I'. The results show that wage subsidies had large and significant favourable...

Social welfare systems usually imply specific obligations for benefit recipients. If a recipient does not comply with these obligations, a sanction involving a punitive benefits reduction may be imposed. In this paper we give an overview of the literature on the effects of sanctions in social...

The evaluation of labor market policies has become an important issue in many European countries. In recent years, a number of them have opened their administrative databases for evaluation studies. The advantages of administrative data are straightforward: they are accurate, contain a large...

This paper assesses the importance of reverse causality when evaluating the impact of training duration for unemployed workers. We use planned duration as an instrumental variable for actual duration. Our results suggest that the potential endogeneity of exits seems to be only relevant in the...

In some countries including Germany unemployed workers can increase their income during job search by taking up "marginal employment" up to a threshold without any deduction from their benefits. Marginal employment can be considered as a wage subsidy as it lowers labour costs for firms owing to...

Dynamic discrete choice models usually require a general specification of unobserved heterogeneity. In this paper, we apply Bayesian procedures as a numerical tool for the estimation of a female labor supply model based on a sample size which is typical for common household panels. We provide...

This study analyzes the treatment effects of public training programs for the unemployed in Germany. Based on propensity score matching methods we extend the picture that has been sketched in previous studies by estimating treatment effects of medium-term programs for different sub-groups with...

It is often argued that the high level of welfare claims in Germany causes little incentive for workers with low productivity to seek for a job. We examine the influence of the ratio between estimated potential labor income and the welfare payment level on the probability of leaving social...

In this paper we develop a model to consistently estimate the intertemporal labor supply behavior on the extensive margin (participation decision) and the intensive margin (working hours decision). In this framework we distinguish between voluntary non-participation and involuntary unemployment...

Unemployment rates are often higher for migrants than for natives. This could result from longer periods of unemployment as well as from shorter periods of employment. This paper jointly examines male native-migrant differences in the duration of unemployment and subsequent employment using...