"Large regional unemployment disparities are a common feature of the labor market in many countries. This study deals with the question whether regional unemployment disparities in western Germany widen, become narrower or remain constant over time. It examines the hypothesis of convergence for...

"Using the example of short-term forecasts for German employment figures, the article at hand examines the question whether the use of disaggregated information increases the forecast accuracy of the aggregate. For this purpose, the out-of-sample forecasts for the aggregated employment forecast...

"Objectives: A multitude of studies has established a negative relationship between unemployment and health. With the 'Hartz-reforms', unemployment benefit II was introduced in 2005. Whether unemployment benefit II receipt has an impact, additional to unemployment, on health, is investigated....

"This paper estimates substitution effects of the German active labour market programme 'JobPerspektive'', a wage subsidy for hard-to-place welfare recipients. Using a novel panel of the entire population of German establishments with full information on unsubsidized and subsidized employment,...

"This paper provides detailed empirical evidence on the scope of mismatch in Germany in the past decade, using a comprehensive administrative data set that allows for disaggregation at the levels of industry, occupation and region. The findings suggest that regional mismatch did not play an...

"Many studies have analysed the effectiveness of single active labour market programmes (ALMPs) for welfare recipients in different countries. As empirical evidence reveals that welfare recipients in Germany often participate in multiple programmes, I evaluate the sequential participation of...

"This paper investigates employment effects of further vocational training, short classroom training, as well as One-Euro-Jobs for lone mothers receiving Unemployment Benefit II (UB II) in Germany. Lone mothers receiving UB II participate in these active labor market programs at very high rates....

"This paper deals with the medium-term effects of job mobility on the average wage growth of job movers in East Germany. The analysis is based on all employees subject to social insurance contributions working in East Germany in 2004. Using a statistical matching procedure combined with a...

"I study the recruiting behaviour of German establishments with regard to the use of foreign labour markets. Applying instrumental variable strategies, I find foreign affinity and labour market scarcity to stimulate the use of foreign markets. Regional labour market scarcity is particularly...

"The paper investigates the predictive power of a new survey implemented by the Federal Employment Agency (FEA) for forecasting German unemployment in the short run. Every month, the CEOs of the FEA's regional agencies are asked about their expectations of future labor market developments. We...