The law on labour market reforms has severely limited the maximum benefit period for the elderly; with cuts of up to 14 months, depending on the age group. Our paper examines this natural experiment and shows that for the age groups in question, the transition rates from employment to...

From 2002–2004, the German government passed several laws that curtailed the generosity of the unemployment compensation system. One of the most ambitious changes was a considerable reduction in unemployment benefit entitlement lengths for older unemployed, which was effective during 2006 and...

We estimate the effect of a shortening of unemployment benefit entitlements on unemployment duration. Previous studies on the same or related problems have not taken into account that the competing risks duration model is not identified and we shed first light on the question whether the non...

From 2002-2004, the German government passed several laws that curtailed the generosity of the unemployment compensation system. One of the most ambitious changes was a considerable reduction in unemployment benefit entitlement lengths for older unemployed, which was effective during 2006 and...

We compare information on the length of unemployment spells contained in the IAB employment subsample (IABS) and in the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP). Due to the lack of information on registered unemployment in the IABS, we use two proxies of unemployment in the IABS as introduced by...