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...

Firms provide substantial insurance against wage fluctuations and job loss. This paper studies how the interaction between shock size and persistence affects the firm’s ability to insure workers against idiosyncratic firm-level shocks. Using linked employer-employee data from Germany, I find...

This paper proposes a new approach to evaluate the macroeconomic effects of the Hartz IV reform in Germany, which reduced the generosity of long-term unemployment benefits. We use a model with different unemployment durations, where the reform initiates both a partial effect and an equilibrium...