In 1997, the German government enacted a reform of the unemployment insurance system which lead to a reduction of the maximum entitlement length for unemployment benefits. The paper analyses the effects of this reform on the risk of unemployment and on unemployment duration of the older...

This paper empirically analyzes the distribution of unemployment durations in West Germany before and after the changes during the mid 1980s in the maximum entitlement periods for unemployment benefits for elderly unemployed. The analysis is based on the comprehensive IAB employment subsample...