Assar Lindbeck has pointed to the problem that generous welfare state institutions may in the long-run undermine those social norms which limit the costs and incentives effects of the welfare state and thus guarantee its viability. This study is the first to assess the empirical validity of...

Empirical work on continuing training in Germany provides surprisingly divergent evidence on the incidence of training. This makes comparison of econometric analyses of the impact of training on labour market outcomes di±cult. Three large German data sets are used here to bring to light the...

In recent years, coinciding with the discussion led in many OECD countries, Germany has started to contract out placement services for the unemployed to private agencies. Whereas in the Netherlands and Australia the whole system of employment services was reorganized at once, making an...

The paper examines the evolution of returns to education in the West German labour market over the last two decades. During this period, graduates from the period of educational expansion in the sixties and seventies entered the labour market and an upgrading of the skill structure took place....

Recent labor market reforms in Germany aim, among other things, at reducing unemployment by restricting passive unemployment measures, emphasizing local labor market policies and re-structuring public employment services. This paper uses extensive individual administrative and regional aggregate...

Dieser Beitrag nimmt aus theoretischer und ökonometrischer Sicht zu der Kontroverse über die Bedeutung der qualifikatorischen Lohnstruktur zur Erklärung der Beschäftigungsstruktur Stellung. Basierend auf einer Einteilung in drei Qualifikationsgruppen zeigt sich empirisch, dass die Entlohnung...

Reputation indexes of employment protection have proven popular constructs in studies of the covariation of labor market institutions and macroeconomic outcomes. Portugal occupies an unenviable rank order in such measures of the stringency of employment protection. We critique this reputation in...