Most Continental European labour markets and welfare states underwent a substantial transformation over the last two decades moving from a situation of low employment and limited labour market inequality to higher employment, but also more inequality. Germany is a case in point as it exhibits...

This paper assesses the existence and the extent of austerity‐oriented policies in Germany in the aftermath of the 2008‐9 recession. In contrast to the intensive phase of labour market and welfare state reforms in the early 2000s aimed at 'welfare readjustment', we do not see austerity...

Germany and France are both Continental European welfare states with severe labor market problems such as low employment and high and persistent unemployment which can be explained by labor market institutions that inhibit labor market adaptability. This paper analyzes recent reforms in core...

The paper challenges the widespread view that Bismarckian countries with a strong role of social insurance and labor market regulation are less successful than other employment regimes and hard to reforms. This has been true about a decade ago. But both the institutional set-up and the...

The trend towards activation has been one of the major issues in recent welfare and labour market reforms in Europe and the US. Despite considerable initial variation across national models with respect to the scope and intensity of activation, redefining the link between social protection and...

In the late nineties, Germany was often seen as a laggard with respect to labor market and welfare state reforms with institutional inertia being reflected in notoriously sluggish employment growth and rising unemployment. Recent years, however, saw a complex sequence of reforms with regard to...

Kurzarbeit hat sich bewährt, Unternehmen dabei zu unterstützen, ihre Belegschaft auch in konjunkturellen Durststrecken im Betrieb halten zu können. Dieses Instrument greift aber bei tiefergehenden strukturellen Problemen zu kurz. Da der der Weiterbildungsbedarf in unserer Gesellschaft zudem...

More and more policy makers tend to declare that the loss of exchange rate adjustments within the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) has to be compensated by an increase in fiscal policy. A joint unemployment insurance is seen as one opportunity. After comparing a basic design with a...

In den letzten zwanzig Jahren hat die Bedeutung internationaler Vergleiche für die Bewertung der Arbeitsmarkt- und Sozialpolitik deutlich zugenommen. Weniger eindeutig ist jedoch die Frage zu beantworten, ob und unter welchen Bedingungen von ausländischen Erfahrungen für die Gestaltung von...

Over the last decade, both the availability of quantitative indicators on labor market institutions and of studies trying to explain differences in national labor market performance through institutional variables have burgeoned significantly. It is now time to review these indicators and the...