This study analyses the effects of public-sector-sponsored continuous vocational training and retraining in East Germany after unification with West Germany in 1990. It presents econometric estimates of the average gains from training participation in terms of employment probabilities, earnings,...

Between 1991 and 1997 West Germany spent on average about 3.6 bn Euro per year on public sector sponsored training programmes for the unemployed. We base our empirical analysis on a new administrative data base that plausibly allows for selectivity correction by microeconometric matching...