In an evaluation of a job-training program, the influence of the program on the individual earnings capacity is important, because it reflects the program effect on human capital. Estimating these effects is complicated because earnings are observed for employed individuals only, and employment...

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...

Over the last decade, both the availability of quantitative indicators on labor market institutions and of studies trying to explain differences in national labor market performance through institutional variables have burgeoned significantly. It is now time to review these indicators and the...

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...

Many Western economies have reformed their welfare systems with the aim of activating welfare recipients by increasing welfare-to-work programmes and job search enforcement. We evaluate the three most important German welfare-to-work programmes implemented after a major reform in January 2005...

The paper challenges the widespread view that Bismarckian countries with a strong role of social insurance and labor market regulation are less successful than other employment regimes and hard to reforms. This has been true about a decade ago. But both the institutional set-up and the...

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...

We analyse the effects of government-sponsored training for the unemployed conducted during East German transition. For the microeconometric analysis, we use a new, large and informative administrative database that allows us to use matching methods to reduce potential selection bias, to study...

This paper provides an overview of the sequential shift towards activating labor market and social policy in Germany. It not only shows the changes in the instruments of active and passives labor market policies but also analyzes the implications of this change for the political economy, the...