Rising wage inequality in the U.S. and Britain (especially in the 1980s) and rising continental European unemployment (with rather stable wage inequality) have led to a popular view in the economics profession that these two phenomena are related to negative relative demand shocks against the...

This study re-estimates the employment effects of training programs for the unemployed using exogenous variation in participation caused by budget rules in Germany in the 1980s and early 1990s, resulting in the infamous "end-of-year spending". In addition to estimating complier effects with...

We estimate the employment effects of training, intervention works (subsidised employment), and public works programmes in Poland. The analysis is based on retrospective monthly calendar information on the labour force state and active labour market programme (ALMP) participation between January...

We analyse Polish active labour market policy (ALMP) training programmes from a macroeconomic (regional) point of view. The effects of training programmes on the outflows from unemployment and the effects of all ALMP programmes on the outflows from employment (to identify displacement effects)...

This paper investigates whether and in what sense the west German wage structure has been "rigid" in the 1990s. To test the hypothesis that a rigid wage structure has been responsible for rising low-skilled unemployment, I propose a methodology which makes less restrictive identifying...

We develop a tractable macroeconomic model with employment risk and labor market search in order evaluate the effects of labor market reform on unemployment, growth, and welfare. The model has a large number of risk-averse households who can invest in risk-free physical capital and risky human...

This paper analyzes the impact of job creation schemes (JCSs) on job search outcomes in the context of the turbulent East German labor market in the aftermath of the German reunification. High job destruction characterized the economic environment. JCSs were heavily used in order to cushion this...

This paper analyzes the role of labor market institutions for youth unemployment, as contrasted to total unemployment. The empirical results are basically consistent with an insider view of labor market institutions. Labor market institutions tend to protect (older) employees but might harm...