In this paper the motivation and various concepts of statistical systems for assisting case workers in assigning unemployed persons to active labour market programmes (ALMP) are examined and the particular implementation of such a statistical system in Switzerland, which was introduced in the...

The active labour market policies in Switzerland and Germany are compared. German and Swiss labour market policies have similar aims, instruments and experienced similar institutional reforms. In Switzerland, an informative administrative database for an evaluation of these policies was made...

Choosing among a number of available treatments the most suitable for a given subject is an issue of everyday concern. A physician has to choose an appropriate drug treatment or medical treatment for a given patient, based on a number of observed covariates X and prior experience. A case worker...

This note argues that nonparametric regression not only relaxes functional form assumptions vis-a-vis parametric regression, but that it also permits endogenous control variables. To control for selection bias or to make an exclusion restriction in instrumental variables regression valid,...

Granger and Sims non-causality (GSNC) are compared to non-causality based on concepts popular in the microeconometrics and programme evaluation literature (potential outcome non-causality, PONC). GSNC is defined as a set of restrictions on joint distributions of random variables with observable...

We investigate the effects of the most important East German active labour market programmes on the labour market outcomes of their participants. The analysis is based on a large and informative individual database coming from administrative data sources. Using matching methods, we find that...

We estimate short, medium, and long-run individual labor market effects of training programs for unemployed by following program participation on a monthly basis over a tenyear period. Since analyzing the effectiveness of training over such a long period is impossible with experimental data, we...

Lechner and Miquel (2001) approached the causal analysis of sequences of interventions from a potential outcome perspective based on selection on observable type of assumptions (sequential conditional independence assumptions). Lechner (2004) proposed matching estimators for this framework....

Depending on the definition of the tax base, the statutory corporate tax rate implies rather different measures of effective average and marginal tax rates. This paper develops a model of a monopolistically competitive industry with extensive and intensive business investment and shows how these...

In Germany, there is currently a discussion about the implementation of penalty charges if firms refuse to offer apprenticeship training positions to school graduates. This paper aims at analyzing the policy instrument of penalty charges by a theoretical model that systematically compares its...