Starting in January 2003, Germany implemented the first two so-called Hartz reforms, followed by the third and fourth packages of Hartz reforms in January 2004 and January 2005, respectively. The aim of these reforms was to accelerate labor market flows and reduce unemployment duration. Without...

We investigate the influence of personality as measured by the Big Five personality scale on absenteeism using representative data for Germany. In particular, the 2005 wave of the German Socio-Economic Panel provides detailed information on socio-economic background characteristics along with a...

We econometrically evaluate the performance effects of a six month e-learning programme in a large retail chain with monthly data on sales revenue, for four years using panel regressions. Participants in early cohorts show positive performance effects during training periods that depreciate...

This paper investigates spatial correlation in the matching process of vacant jobs and job seekers. The importance of the interactions of regional labor markets in West Germany is highlighted in several dimensions. We test for spatial autocorrelation in regional hires, unemployment and vacancy...

By applying a stochastic production frontier approach to the matching process of unemployed and vacancies, this paper provides novel detailed insights into the process of job creation. For different labor markets as defined by occupation and region, the methodology produces estimates of the...

This paper investigates the efficiency of the matching process between job seekers and vacancy posting firms in West-Germany, using variation across labor market regions and across time. The results of a stochastic frontier analysis shed new light on extent and regional differences of search...

This paper makes two contributions to the empirical matching literature. First, a recent study by Anderson and Burgess (2000) testing for endogenous competition among job seekers in a matching framework, is replicated with a richer and more accurate data set for Germany. Their results are...

This paper deals with empirical matching functions. The paper is innovative in several ways. First, unlike in most of the existing literature, matching functions are estimated not only on aggregate, but also on disaggregate levels which is unusual due to the scarcity of appropriate data....

This paper assesses the potential of "workplace training" with reference to German Apprenticeship. When occupational matching is important, we derive conditions under which firms provide "optimal" training packages. Since the German system broadly meets these conditions, we evaluate the...