Retraining the labor force to match the demands of a modern economy is an important task during the transition process from a centrally planned to a market economy. This need is particular pressing in East Germany, because the transition process is much faster there than in the rest of Eastern...

We investigate the plans of individual workers concerning future self-employment in the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany) shortly before the economic, monetary and social union in June/July 1990. Our data base is the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) East. We find that the desire to...

This study investigates firm survival and employment growth of start-ups by unemployed people in East and West Germany as promoted by the Work Support Act (so called bridging allowances). In 1994, the services provided were improved considerably, which led to a sharp increase in the number of...

The focus of the paper is on the analysis of the individual determinants of self-employment in East Germany after unification, with special respect to the dynamic issues which may arise. The data set used is the Arbeitsmarkt-Monitor für die neuen Bundesländer, which is a panel data set...

This paper explores the potential of an approach suggested by Manski of obtaining nonparametric bounds for treatment effects in evaluation studies without knowledge of the participation process. The practical concern is the effects of continuous vocational training in East Germany. The empirical...

We analyze the effectiveness of public works programs (PWP, Arbeitsbeschaffungsmaßnahmen) in east Germany as measured by their effects on individual future reemployment probabilities in regular jobs. These are estimated by discrete hazard rate models on the basis of individuallevel panel data....