Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Policy in Europe The number of refugees worldwide is now 12 million, up from 3 million in the early 1970s. And the number seeking asylum in the developed world increased tenfold, from about 50,000 per annum to half a million over the same period. Governments and international agencies have grappled with the twin problems of providing adequate humanitarian assistance...

The Unexpected Appearance of a New German Model 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 growing employment figures and growing shares of low pa...

Optimal Use of Labor Market Policies: The Role of Job Search Assistance This paper studies the role of job search assistance programs in optimal welfare-to-work programs. The analysis is based on a framework, that allows for endogenous choice of benefit types and levels, wage taxes or subsidies, and activation measures such as monitoring and job search assistance for each period of unemployment...

Is the Contracting-Out of Intensive Placement Services More Effective than Provision by the PES? Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment There is a longstanding debate on the advantages of quasi-markets for placement services compared to their public deliverance. During 2009, the German Public Employment Service (PES) implemented a randomized field experiment to investigate if intensive ser...

Income Support Systems, Labor Market Policies and Labor Supply: The German Experience In view of the demographic trends, most EU countries face the problem of a declining work force in the future. Understanding the interaction between income support systems (such as unemployment benefits, social assistance, early retirement and pension systems) and total labor supply is of crucial importance to...

Turning Unemployment into Self-Employment: Effectiveness and Efficiency of Two Start-Up Programmes 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 selfemployment rate. Empirical evidence on ...

The introduction of unemployment insurance savings accounts (UISA) in Chile in October 2002 led to more comprehensive unemployment protection while decreasing the opportunity cost of job change. Using a difference-in-differences approach this paper examines whether the introduction of UISA had an impact on the differences in subsequent wages and contract types of (i) workers changing into a new...

The German Labor Market: Still Adjusting Badly? 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 labor market-related institutions such as labor market...

This is the first empirical paper that aims for a comprehensive evaluation of sanction effects. Beyond effects on duration, we evaluate the individual’s post-unemployment position in the wage hierarchy, up to two years after exit, as well as the issue of employment stability. A rich set of register data allows constructing appropriate measures to tackle these questions and assessing their empir...