Estimating the returns to migration from East to West Germany, this paper focuses on pre-migration employment dynamics, earnings uncertainty, and job change in the source region. Migrants are found to be negatively selected with respect to labor market outcomes, with a large drop in earnings and...

Following the predominance of macroeconomic stabilisation policies and passive income support schemes in the first phase of transition, active labour market policies (ALMPs) have now come to play a more important role in transition economies. This paper looks at the Polish experience and...

In this paper we analyze the effects of a German job creation scheme (JCS) on the social integration and well-being of long-term unemployed individuals. Using linked survey and administrative data for participants and a group of matched non-participants, we find significant positive effects of...

Using a novel methodology, we offer new evidence that a threshold relationship exists for Okun's law. We use a logistic smoothed transition regression (LSTR) model where possible threshold endogeneity is addressed based on copula theory. We also suggest a new test of the linearity hypothesis...

We evaluate the effects of permanently reducing labour tax rates in the euro area (EA) by simulating a large-scale open economy dynamic general equilibrium model. The model features the EA as a monetary union, split in two regions (Home and the rest of the EA - REA), the US, and the rest of the...

This paper studies the dynamics of unemployment (u) and its natural rate (u*), with u* measured by real-time estimates for 29 countries from the OECD. We find strong evidence of hysteresis: an innovation in u causes u* to change in the same direction, and therefore has permanent effects. For our...

We offer a decomposition for the variance of the current unemployment rate that not only measures the contributions of labor market flows but also of the approximation error embedded in other decompositions that use surrogates for the current rate. Using data for the United States and Brazil,...

Using specific panel data of German welfare benefit recipients, we investigate the non-pecuniary life satisfaction effects of in-work benefits. Our empirical strategy combines difference-in-difference designs with synthetic control groups to analyze transitions of workers between unemployment,...

This paper shows that increasing the normal retirement age and introducing pension deductions for retirement before normal retirement age in Germany did not prolong employment of older men. The reason for this surprising result is that employers encouraged their employees to use the bridge...