The trend towards activation has been one of the major issues in recent welfare and labour market reforms in Europe and the US. Despite considerable initial variation across national models with respect to the scope and intensity of activation, redefining the link between social protection and...

This paper provides a preliminary assessment of recent reforms of German employment promotion policy. While several recent studies analyze the impact of measures of employment promotion for the case of Germany, no comparable study exists on the aggregate level, thus precluding any assessment of...

Trotz des beachtlichen personellen und finanziellen Aufwands, der in der Bundesrepublik für die Durchführung arbeitsmarktpolitischer Maßnahmen betrieben wird, ist ihr Erfolg in keiner Weise gesichert. Im Gegenteil, die bisherige Evaluierungspraxis verletzt nahezu durchgängig eine der...

Each year Germany and many other developed economies spend tens of billions of Euros on active measures of employment promotion with the explicit aim of contributing to the reduction of unemployment. Yet, high unemployment has universally been a persistent problem throughout the last two...

Despite a sequence of labor market reforms in recent years, employment of older workers in Germany is still lower than in many other European countries. The paper explains this by institutional factors that affect labor supply, labor demand and matching, i.e. labor market regulation, human...

With the Hartz reforms active labor market policies in Germany were overhauled considerably. The paper reviews the recent evaluation findings and draws some conclusion for the future setup of active labor market policies in Germany. It argues in favor of a streamlined repertoire of active labor...

Die Arbeitsmarktreformen der letzten Jahre haben die strukturellen Anpassungsprobleme des deutschen Beschäftigungsmodells zum Teil gelindert - allerdings sind noch längst nicht alle Schwierigkeiten überwunden. Für die Zukunft besteht die zentrale Herausforderung darin, eine...

Germany and France are both Continental European welfare states with severe labor market problems such as low employment and high and persistent unemployment which can be explained by labor market institutions that inhibit labor market adaptability. This paper analyzes recent reforms in core...

Germany has always been one of the prime examples of institutional complementarities between social insurance, a rather passive welfare state, strong employment protection and collective bargaining that stabilize diversified quality production. This institutional arrangement was criticized for...