Germany, as most other European countries, has been plagued by a persistently high level of long-term unemployment since the early 1980's. In contrast, long-term unemployment is much less of a problem in the United States. One potential reason for the different structure of unemployment relates...

At the start of the German unification process it was a commonly held view that east German living conditions will converge to west Geman levels within a few years. This view was not only held by notoriously optimistic politicians but also by a great many of professional economists. With...

Social assistance and unemployment assistance, which provide means tested income support (social welfare) without pre-specified time limits, are viewed as one important reason for the persistently high level of unemployment in Germany by many economists. In order to increase work incentives and,...

We analyze the effectiveness of public works programs (PWP, Arbeitsbeschaffungsmaßnahmen) in east Germany as measured by their effects on individual future reemployment probabilities in regular jobs. These are estimated by discrete hazard rate models on the basis of individual-level panel data....

We analyze the dramatic decline of the employment share of unskilled labor in the West German economy, in particular its relation to the relatively rigid earnings structure. We find that the substitution elasticity between unskilled and skilled labor is rather low in most sectors of the economy....