Based on new, exceptionally informative and large German linked employer-employee administrative data, we investigate the question whether the omission of important control variables in matching estimation leads to biased impact estimates of typical active labour market programs for the...

In an evaluation of a job-training program, the influence of the program on the individual earnings capacity is important, because it reflects the program effect on human capital. Estimating these effects is complicated because earnings are observed for employed individuals only, and employment...

Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, this paper analyses the effects of spending part of adolescents' leisure time on playing music or doing sports, or both. We find that while playing music fosters educational outcomes compared to doing sports, particularly so for girls and children...

This paper evaluates the effect of a voucher award system for assignment into vocational training on the employment outcomes of unemployed voucher recipients in Germany, along with the causal mechanisms through which it operates. It assesses the direct effect of voucher assignment net of actual...

This paper investigates the average effects of (firm-provided) workplace health promotion measures in form of the analysis of sickness absenteeism and health circles/courses on labour market out-comes of the firms' employees. Exploiting linked employer-employee panel data that consist of rich...

Based on new, exceptionally informative and large German linked employer-employee administrative data, we investigate the question whether the omission of important control variables in matching estimation leads to biased impact estimates of typical active labour market programs for the...

Matching-type estimators using the propensity score are the major workhorse in active labour market policy evaluation. This work investigates if machine learning algorithms for estimating the propensity score lead to more credible estimation of average treatment effects on the treated using a...

This paper examines whether contacts between caseworkers in public employment offices and employers impact on the reemployment chances of the unemployed they counsel. This analysis is made possible through a large administrative dataset on unemployed combined with an extensive survey of...

We evaluate a randomized experiment of a statistical support system developed to assist caseworkers in Swiss employment offices in choosing appropriate active labour market programmes for their unemployed clients. This statistical support system predicted the labour market outcome for each...