In April 1995, 5.3 million people in Germany were on the lookout for a new job opportunity. 177,000 or nearly 3% of those were searching for an opportunity to get self-employed. In this study the determinants of the lookout for selfemployment in lieu of wage work are investigated separately for...

In 1997, the German government enacted a reform of the unemployment insurance system which lead to a reduction of the maximum entitlement length for unemployment benefits. The paper analyses the effects of this reform on the risk of unemployment and on unemployment duration of the older...