Essays on matching processes and effects of institutional changes on regional and occupational labour markets

The functioning of the labour market and the impact of labour market policies are a long-standing issue in social and political debate. In this respect, labour market research acquires the necessary knowledge and often receives impulses from labour market policy. Conversely, progress in the development of research methods and data mining encourages labour market policymakers to ask new questions that have not been answered yet. Michael Stops picks up such developments and focusses on the following three issues: - Occupational mobility and the job matching efficiency - The development of job matching efficiency on partial occupational markets before, during and after the years of the German labour market reform 2003-2005 - The employment effect of the National Minimum Wage in the United Kingdom 1999-2012.