Using a retrospective monthly calendarium of individuals' major economic activities, this paper characterizes the monthly employment and unemployment rates and the monthly transition intensities between the states of employment, unemployment, and out-of-thelabor- force for the German labor...

This paper investigates whether and in what sense the west German wage structure has been "rigid" in the 1990s. To test the hypothesis that a rigid wage structure has been responsible for rising low-skilled unemployment, I propose a methodology which makes less restrictive identifying...

When unemployed persons go into business, they often are characterized as necessity entrepreneurs, because push factors, namely their unemployment, likely prompted their decision. In contrast to this, business founders who have been previously employed represent opportunity entrepreneurs because...

Unemployment continues to be one of the major challenges in industrialized societies. Aside from its economic dimensions and societal repercussions, questions concerning the individual experience of unemployment have recently attracted increasing attention. Although many studies have documented...

Support schemes for unemployed aiming for self-employment have been recently reformed several times. In 2003, the "start-up subsidyʺ was added to the existing "bridging allowanceʺ. In 2006 both instruments were merged to the "Gründungszuschussʺ. Since the bridging allowance has been...