Training The East German Labour Force

After unification large amounts of money were spent to retrain the East Germany labour force in order to ease the transition to the new market economy. This book uses microeconometric methods and individual data to evaluate the impact of these training programmes on the participants' labour market situation. It discusses the appropriate evaluation methodology as well as the effectiveness of the actual programmes for the individual participants. The empirical results suggest that the public sector sponsored training programmes were fairly ineffective. In contrast, the training organized and paid by the enterprises caused considerable earnings growings.

This book analyses the employment effects of job creation schemes for participating individuals in Germany. Programs provide subsidized jobs that are additional in nature and of value for society. International evidence on their effectiveness suggests that programs should be targeted to the needs of the unemployed and should be offered early in the period of unemployment. Both questions are studied for job creation schemes in Germany.

This book brings together up-to-date findings on the regional dimensions of European labour markets. It provides a conceptual and empirical study of the interactions between the European economy and its regions, paying particular attention to the issue of the transition of Central and Eastern European countries to a market economy. The topics analysed include: the structure of the shocks affecting employment (regional, industrial, national), the relationships between labour market efficiency and the regional distribution of unemployment, wage flexibility in EU member countries or in their regions and the role of active labour market policies in affecting the regional distribution of employment and unemployment.

The transformation of east Germany since unification has wrought vast changes in the economy and in society and left deep scars as the types of social protection offered by the centralised socialism of the previous regime gave way to uncertainties and individualised life chances. Social Transformation in Eastern Germany investigates the deep economic and social processes which east Germany has undergone, highlighting the restructuring, the social impacts and the stresses of adjustment experienced by key social groups whose workplace and social context has been recast almost out of recognition since 1990.

The evaluation of labour market and other public policies has become increasingly important in recent years. In an era of tight government budgets, a thorough analysis of these measures is imperative. This book provides a comprehensive overview and assessment of the most relevant microeconometric evaluation methods. It focuses on the popular propensity score matching method and gives extensive guidance for its implementation. In the second part of the book, this method is used to evaluate the employment effects of job creation schemes on the participating individuals in Germany. Based on a large administrative dataset of over 11,000 participants, the study allows to draw policy-relevant conclusions for the first time.