Social assistance in Germany reduces the incentive to work. TheU. S. Welfare to Work Programme tries to avoid such disincentives. It consists essentially of two elements: the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for employees in low wage occupations and a Workfare model. The EITC and the Workfare...

In the Great Recession most OECD countries used short-time work (publicly subsidized working time reductions) to counteract a steep increase in unemployment. We show that short-time work can actually save jobs. However, there is an important distinction to be made: While the rule-based component...

This paper reviews the evidence of specific mandatory work-first programmes (job search assistance and workfare) for welfare recipients in the United States, the United Kingdom, Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany. It primarily refers to experimental and econometric evaluations. The...

Since 2003 the German Public Employment Service (PES) has been experimenting with the contracting out of various services. One of the new labour market programmes is the Personnel Service Agencies, which provide client firms with jobseekers on a temporary assignment basis and are responsible for...

In the Covid-19 crisis, most OECD countries have used short-time work (subsidized working time reductions) to preserve employment relationships. This paper studies whether short-time work can save jobs through stabilizing aggregate demand in recessions. First, we show that the consumption risk...