In 2007, Germany implemented a generous parental leave regulation in order to make parenthood more attractive and more compatible with a working career, especially for mothers. We evaluate the reform using a natural experiment that compares outcomes of parents with children born shortly after...

On January 1st, 1997, minimum wages were introduced in the German main construction sector. We examine the effects of this wage regulation on various aspects of the labour market of this sector, particularly the effects on wages and employment. In East Germany, at the time of its introduction,...

Zum 1. Januar 1997 wurde im Bauhauptgewerbe ein Mindestlohn eingeführt, der bis heute besteht. Die vorliegende Studie fasst verschiedene Ergebnisse zu den Folgen dieser Mindestlohnregelung zusammen. In Ostdeutschland war die Betroffenheit durch den Mindestlohn zum Zeitpunkt der Einführung...

The introduction of the German parental leave benefit (Elterngeld) applied to all children born on 1 January, 2007 or later. The Elterngeld considerably changed the amount of transfers to families during the first two years postpartum. We show that the incentives created by using a cut-off date...

This paper investigates the causal effect of regional variation in active labor market policy utilizing data for 176 German employment offices and a period covering 2000-2004. In this endeavor, we also analyze the impact of the recent labor market reforms ('Hartz reforms'). We use flow measures...

Having faced high unemployment rates for more than a decade, the German government implemented a comprehensive set of labour market reforms during the period 2003-2005. This paper describes the economic and institutional context of the German labour market before and after these so-called Hartz...

Der vorliegende Beitrag analysiert anhand eines natürlichen Experiments die mittelfristigen Effekte der Elterngeldreform in Ost- und Westdeutschland. Die Einführung des Elterngeldsim Jahr 2007 hat zu substanziellen Veränderungen in der mittelfristigen Erwerbsbeteiligung (drei bis fünf Jahre...

Reducing youth unemployment and generating more and better youth employment opportunities are key policy challenges worldwide. Active labor market programs for disadvantaged youth may be an effective tool in such cases, but the results have often been disappointing in Organisation for Economic...

While high rates of youth unemployment are a severe problem in most European countries, the program evaluation literature shows that di sadvantaged youths constitute a group that is particularly difficult to assist effectively. As innovative measures are thus needed, we evaluate a German pilot...