This study analyses the effect of public sector sponsored continuous vocational training and retraining in East Germany after unification with West Germany in 1990.

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

We investigate the allocation of unemployed individuals to different subprograms within Swiss active labour market policy by the caseworkers at local employment offices in Switzerland in 1998. We are particularly interested in whether the caseworkers allocate the unemployed to services in ways...