"Contracting out placement services aims at enhancing the effectiveness of placements of unemployed job-seekers through market mechanisms. This paper analyses the effectiveness of the temporary assignment of needy job-seekers to private placement services by comparing their outcomes with respect...

"This paper estimates for a sample of means-tested unemployment benefit recipients the effects of their participation in short-term training programmes in Germany. We apply propensity score matching and rely on a large sample of treated and controls from administrative data, which in contrast to...

"Short-term training has recently become the largest active labor market program in Germany regarding the number of participants. Little is known on the effectiveness of different types of short-term training and on their long-run effects. This paper estimates the effects of short-term training...

"In many countries fairly large and persistent regional disparities can be observed for a variety of economic indicators. Since these disparities can not be reduced to one single dimension, a classification system is needed to give a parsimonious overview. The article presents a system which is...

"This paper explores how different levels of regional concentration and specialisation affect the long-term growth of young firms. The sample consists of knowledge-intensive and non-knowledge-intensive western German manufacturing firms which were set-up in 1992 and managed to survive 11 years....

"Recent theoretical research deals with economic costs and benefits of cultural diversity related to immigration. However, empirical evidence regarding the impact of cultural diversity on economic performance is still scarce. This paper investigates the significance of cultural diversity of the...

"Gegenstand des Beitrags sind durch die Bundesagentur für Arbeit (BA) finanzierte Maßnahmen zur Förderung der beruflichen Weiterbildung nach dem Dritten Sozialgesetzbuch (SGB III), die in den Jahren 2000 bis 2002 mit Mitteln des Europäischen Sozialfonds (ESF) ergänzt wurden. Mit dieser...

"Using two nationally representative establishment data sets, this paper investigates collective bargaining coverage and firms' choice of governance structures for the employment relationship in Britain and in (western and eastern) Germany. Both countries have experienced a substantial decline...

"Lohnunterschiede zwischen Frauen und Männern werden in der ökonomischen und sozialwissenschaftlichen Diskussion unter anderem auf die unterschiedlichen beruflichen Tätigkeiten von Männern und Frauen (Segregation) sowie die unterschiedliche Ausstattungen mit Humankapital zurückgeführt. In...

"There is a large body of literature on the determinants of regional variation in new firm formation. In contrast there are few articles on the spatial differences in new firm survival. Using panel data we analyse both items for 74 western German regions over a ten-year period. The positive...