Benefit sanctions imposed on non-compliant welfare recipients are a new element in the German welfare system. In practice, the sanction policy and the application of sanctions vary considerably across the 439 welfare agencies. Based on combined administrative and survey data, these differences...

The 2005 reform of the German welfare system introduced two competing organizational models for welfare administration. In most districts, a centralized organization was established where local welfare agencies are bound to central directives. At the same time, 69 districts were allowed to opt...

Job search assistance and intensified counseling have been found to be effective for labor market integration by a large number of studies, but the evidence for older and hard-to-place unemployed individuals more specifically is mixed. In this paper we present key results from the evaluation of...

Trotz eines umfangreichen Regelwerks verbleiben den Agenturen für Arbeit und ihren Vermittlerinnen und Vermittlern erhebliche Gestaltungsspielräume bei der Umsetzung der Arbeitsmarktpolitik. In dieser Studie untersuchen wir anhand von kombinierten Befragungs- und Prozessdaten, welche...

In the German school and vocational education systems, there is a wide range of support measures during school-to-work transition. We analyze a novel program providing mentoring to low-achieving school leavers. The program bridges different stages and different institutional systems in secondary...

Ziel des Papiers ist es, wichtige Herausforderungen und Handlungsansätze der Jobcenter bei der Integration der Geflüchteten in Arbeit zu identifizieren. Hierzu wurden qualitative Fallstudien in fünf Jobcentern durchgeführt. Die Interviews mit Beschäftigten der Jobcenter geben Aufschluss...

Changes in Dismissal Protection Legislation in Germany have been a subject to ongoing research in the past decade. The majority of these studies, however, has not been able to determine significant effects on job and worker flows in firms affected by the reforms. We estimate the impact of...

This paper provides a meta-analysis of 55 empirical studies estimating the employment effects of minimum wages in 15 industrial countries. It strongly confirms the notion that the effects of minimum wages are heterogeneous between countries. As possible sources of heterogeneity, it considers the...

We study heterogeneity in the effects of two pension reforms in Germany that closed pathways into early retirement: the abolition of an old-age pension scheme for women and the abolition of a pension after unemployment or part-time work. We focus on heterogeneity with respect to several...

This study addresses the impact of offshorability (a job characteristic indicating how easily a job can be offshored) on employment changes and worker mobility in Germany. A composite measure of offshorability for German data is used which broadens existing measurements such as Blinder (2009)....