Standard program evaluations implicitly assume that individuals are perfectly informed about the considered policy change and the related institutional rules. This seems not very plausible in many contexts, as diverse examples show. However, evidence on how incomplete information affects the...

The aim of the paper is to examine the consequences of displacement on unemployment duration. Due to ex-ante asymmetric information about the productivity of unemployed applicants, prospective employers use the type of displacement as a costless signal about the ability of the worker when making...

We develop and empirically test a labor market model with Public Employment Agencies (PEA) in order to understand why not all vacancies use the costless services provided by the PEA. We show that both the search market and the PEA can be active in equilibrium. In such an equilibrium, workers...

Monthly panel (1998-2003) data from regional labor offices in Latvia are used to conclude on the specificity of matching process in this transition economy and to evaluate the impact of active labor market policy programs on outflows from unemployment. Results confirm that the hiring process is...

In 2005, the unemployment compensation for long-term unemployed was reduced in Germany. We examine how this reform affected the transition probability to employment. Additionally, we inspect how this effect varies over unemployment duration. We estimate proportional hazard models using German...

The German employment miracle with a weak decline in employment and low unemployment during the great recession seems to be a good example for a successful labour market reform. While the aggregate level of job turnover seems to be stable over time, there are nevertheless concerns about rising...

In the course of a comprehensive labor market reform started in 2003 and finished through the implementation of the most radical measure Hartz IV in 2005, I exploit its impact on matching processes in Germany. I use disaggregated data for 178 local employment agencies to examine the effects of...

Based on a new, exceptionally informative and large German linked employer-employee administrative dataset, we investigate the question whether the omission of important control variables in matching estimation leads to biased impact estimates of typical active labour market programmes for the...

Many countries rely on monitoring of unemployment insurance and welfare recipients and impose benefit sanctions in case of noncompliance with job search requirements to encourage job search and to prevent abuse of the social insurance system. This paper systematically analyzes 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...