We conducted a field experiment to evaluate the impact of job-search assistance on the employment of recently arrived refugees in Germany. The treatment group received job-matching support: an NGO identified suitable vacancies and sent the refugees' CVs to employers. Results of follow-up phone...

Die Hartz-Reformen stellten zweifelsohne eine bedeutende Wende in der Entwicklung des Arbeitsmarktes dar. Obwohl die Reformen aus vier Teilen bestanden, war es hauptsächlich die Hartz-IV-Reform, die zu intensiven politischen und öffentlichen Debatten führte. Andrey Launov und Klaus Wälde...

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...

Many workers believe that personal contacts are crucial for obtaining jobs in high-wage sectors. On the other hand, firms in high-wage sectors report using employee referrals because they help provide screening and monitoring of new employees. This paper develops a matching model that can...

Most evaluation studies of active labour market policies (ALMP) focus on the microeconometric evaluation approach using individual data. However, as the microeconometric approach usually ignores impacts on the non-participants, it should be seen as a first step to a complete evaluation which has...

General equilibrium analyses of layoff costs have had mixed messages on the implications for employment. This paper brings out the economic forces at work and explains the disparate results. Specifically, we show that positive employment effects of layoff costs come through reducing labor...

This paper provides a simple matching model in which unemployed workers and employers can be matched together through social networks and through more efficient, but also more costly, methods. In this framework, decentralized decisions to utilize social networks in the job search process can be...

While Hyman P. Minsky is best known for his work on financial instability, he was also intimately involved in the postwar debates about fiscal policy and what would become the War on Poverty. Indeed, at the University of California, Berkeley, he was a vehement critic of the policies of the...

We provide a matching model where identical workers are embedded in ex-ante identical social networks. Job arrival rate is endogenous and wages are bargained. We study the evolution of networks over time and characterize the equilibrium distribution of unemployment rates across networks. We...

The intergenerational elasticity of income is considered one of the best measures of the degree to which a society gives equal opportunity to its members. While much research has been devoted to measuring this reduced-form parameter, less is known about its underlying structural determinants....