An event history analysis on German long-term unemployment

This paper investigates the determinants of German long-term unemployment. In particular a microeconometric event history analysis will be carried out to examine what impact personal characteristics such as age, gender, education, etc. or factors such as receiving unemployment benefits have on the length of unemployment. The paper further discusses the advantages and disadvantages of a semi-parametric and a parametric estimate of the sample. The use of the Cox model on the one hand and a Weibull specified model on the other have failed to offer any corroboration for application of the semiparametric approach favoured in the theoretical literature. One can also see that not all groups are equally affected by long term unemployment. This is an important finding in terms of economic policy because it sheds light into appropriate policy measures that should be considered to reduce the lenght of time certain groups spend in unemployment.