"The labor markets of most industrialized countries are polarized. This means that employment has grown in jobs at the upper and lower tails of the wage distribution, while employment in the middle part of the distribution has stagnated or declined. However, there exists no measure that allows a...

"In 2003, Germany moved from a system in which participants in training programs for the unemployed are assigned by caseworkers to an allocation system using vouchers. Based on the rich administrative data for all vouchers and on actual program participation, we provide inverse probability...

"A major unemployment and welfare benefit reform took place in Germany in 2005. One objective of this reform was to more strongly encourage an adult worker model of the family, with an emphasis on activating the formerly inactive. Our hypothesis is, however, that assignments to activation...

"Since 2006, the IAB develops classifications of job centres, which are regulated according to the Social Code Book (SGB) II. These classifications account for the fact that there are substantial disparities in the economic or social structure of German regions. These disparities affect the work...

"A considerable number of people, particularly the older unemployed, exhibit a variety of barriers to placement. Integrating them into employment constitutes a challenge for labor market policy. The current research report presents the results of a program aimed at older persons receiving...

"Almost twenty years after German reunification there are still huge income disparities between western and eastern regions in Germany. The main purpose of the paper is to show how social transfer payments reduce these inter-regional disparities. In a first step we examine inequalities in the...

"In this paper we show that firm characteristics have an influence on the success of employment subsidies e.g. wage subsidies and in-work benefits, as they can strengthen positive effects or mitigate negative effects. We consider firm characteristics as post treatment variables, which are...

"Sprachkenntnisse in Deutsch und berufliche Abschlüsse sind wichtige Voraussetzungen für die wirtschaftliche und soziale Teilhabe von Personen mit Migrationshintergrund in Deutschland. Seit längerer Zeit gibt es daher spezifische Sprachförderangebote für unterschiedliche Zielgruppen. Mit...

"This paper focuses on the question of whether improving the competence of new business founders by means of coaching and training programs enhances the duration of self-employment. In our analysis we focus on support activities that are provided in addition to a financial subsidy and which...

"In this paper we study the effect of small labor market entry cohorts on (un)employment in Western Germany. From a theoretical point of view, decreasing cohort sizes may on the one hand reduce unemployment due to 'inverse cohort crowding' or on the other hand increase unemployment if companies...