Nations that have managed to become rich have had institutional features that supported incentives for value creation while ensuring that the ways insiders and special interest groups can extract monopoly rents are limited. Improved skills have been a central component of helping individuals and...

The importance of transport for human development is rather unchallenged. Transport is fundamental for the functioning of markets in general, and the labour market in particular, including the labour it needs for its own functioning. The aim of this article is to identify and assess key...

This study deals with youth unemployment trends in Europe since the mid of the 80ths in general and regards individual risk factors for Germany and the United Kingdom in particular in the mid of the 90ths. The study for the two selected countries shows that the individual risk of (long-term)...

Turning unemployment into self-employment has become a major focus of German active labour market policy (ALMP) in recent years. If effective, this would not only reduce Germany?s persistently high unemployment rate, but also increase its notoriously low self-employment rate. Empirical evidence...

Over the last year the German government has introduced a comprehensive set of labor market policy reforms, the so-called Hartz reforms, which aim at a significant reduction of unemployment. To this end, (a) many of the existing instruments of active labor market policy are modified...

This paper investigates the macroeconomic effects of job creation schemes and vocational training on the matching processes in West Germany. The empirical analysis is based on regional data for local employment office districts for the period from 1999 to 2003. The empirical model relies on a...

If labour market policies aimed at people with disabilities are effective, we should observe no significant difference in labour market outcomes between disable and non-disable individuals. This paper examines the impact of disability status on labour market outcomes using matching methods...

Over the last year the German government has introduced a comprehensive set of labor market policy reforms, the so-called Hartz reforms, which aim at a significant reduction of unemployment. To this end, (a) many of the existing instruments of active labor market policy are modified...