Creating better jobs and working conditions are key elements of the European social model. Improving the quality of work and working conditions is, however, a new dimension within the European Employment Strategy which previously concentrated on quantitative measures such as increasing...

Between 1991 and 1997 West Germany spent on average about 3.6 bn Euro per year on public sector sponsored training programmes for the unemployed. We base our empirical analysis on a new administrative data base that plausibly allows for selectivity correction by microeconometric matching...