Suchergebnisse

This book analyses the employment effects of job creation schemes for the participating individuals in Germany. Programmes provide subsidised jobs that are additional in nature and of value for society to hard-to-place individuals. International evidence on the effectiveness suggests that programmes should be targeted to the needs of the unemployed and should be offered early in the unemployment spell. Both questions are studied for job creation schemes in Germany. In the empirical analysis, propensity score matching methods extended to the dynamic setting are applied to administrative data of the Federal Employment Agency.

We evaluate the effects of the most frequently used German welfare-to-work program on the employment chances of immigrant welfare recipients. In particular, we investigate whether program effects differ between immigrants and natives and what might cause these potential differences. Our results reveal that the program fails to achieve its objectives. The effects are more adverse for natives, but the program does not help otherwise identical immigrants to leave the welfare system either. Therefore, the program is a dead-end road rather than a merging lane to regular employment both for natives and for immigrants. -- Immigrants ; employment programs ; evaluation ; decomposition of effects ; Germany

SUMMARYEuropean countries provide a number of different active labor market policy programs to reduce the risk and the amount of long‐term unemployment. Programs focus on particular sets of barriers to employment, such as lack of motivation (via sanctions), lack of job search skills (via job search assistance), lack of experience (via wage subsidies), or lack of marketable skills (via training programs). Numerous studies have been conducted to analyze the effectiveness of these activities. The results clarify that a number of programs are not very successful in reaching the intended goals. The major reason may be that the available programs do not (or do not fully) meet the needs of the unemployed. In this paper, differences in the employability between short‐term and long‐term unemployed persons are studied in order to reveal the crucial factors of job‐finding chances. Analyzing the factors driving employment chances is a necessary step to shed light on the needs of job seekers and to derive recommendations for a (re‐)arrangement of active labor market policy according to those needs. The empirical analysis is based on unique survey data of short‐term and long‐term unemployed persons merged with administrative data for Germany, including usually unavailable information. The results highlight three significant and important findings. First, differences in formal skills could only explain a small part of the employability gap between short‐term and long‐term unemployed persons. Hence, providing courses that aim at increasing skills of the individuals (at least in Germany) may reduce the employment gap, but the scope is limited. Second, differences in obstacles to employment – in particular care obligations – are relevant. If long‐term unemployed persons were equal in characteristics to the short‐term unemployed, the employability gap between both groups would clearly be narrower. Third, differences in the state of health, and in particular limitations in working ability, largely account for the employment gap. For this reason, policy makers should pay more attention to the last two findings when designing the placement process. The set of active labor market programs should be revised addressing these aspects in order to increase the employability of the participants.

This paper analyzes the determinants of employability differences between short-term and long-term unemployed persons. Knowing these differences could help to address active labor market policy programs more adequately to the needs of the job-seekers in order to increase employment integration. Based on merged survey and register data differences in job finding chances of these groups are decomposed into a part due to differences in attributes and a part due to differences in valuing the attributes. The estimates clarify that current active labor market programs do not address important factors of employment. Particularly, health of the job seekers, limitations in the working ability and obstacles to employment comprising substance abuse, financial debts or care obligations for children or frail elderly play a significant role for successful placement. The conclusion is that policy makers should integrate these aspects in the placement process.

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.

AbstractBystander programs contribute to crime prevention by motivating people to intervene in violent situations. Social media allow addressing very specific target groups, and provide valuable information for program evaluation. This paper provides a conceptual framework for conducting benefit–cost analysis of bystander programs and puts a particular focus on the use of social media for program dissemination and data collection. The benefit–cost model treats publicly funded programs as investment projects and calculates the benefit–cost ratio. Program benefit arises from the damages avoided by preventing violent crime. We provide systematic instructions for estimating this benefit. The explained estimation techniques draw on social media data, machine-learning technology, randomized controlled trials and discrete choice experiments. In addition, we introduce a complementary approach with benefits calculated from the public attention generated by the program. To estimate the value of public attention, the approach uses the bid landscaping method, which originates from display advertising. The presented approaches offer the tools to implement a benefit–costs analysis in practice. The growing importance of social media for the dissemination of policy programs requires new evaluation methods. By providing two such methods, this paper contributes to evidence-based decision-making in a growing policy area.

Die Bologna-Reform hat vor 22 Jahren die Hochschullandschaft in Europa verändert und die bisherigen Studienstrukturen vielfach abgelöst. Untersuchungen, die die kausalen Wirkungen der Reform auf Studienentscheidungen, Studienerfolg, Studierendenmobilität und Arbeitsmarkterträge analysieren, sind jedoch rar. Prof. Dr. Stephan Thomsen und Johannes Trunzer vom Institut für Wirtschaftspolitik formulieren methodische Überlegungen, wie offene Fragen aus dem Bologna-Prozess untersucht werden könnten.

Beiträge und Positionierungen von Wissenschaftler*innen sind in der jüngsten Vergangenheit intensiv in der Öffentlichkeit diskutiert worden. Dies hatte nicht nur positive Reaktionen zur Folge. Vitus Püttmann und Professor Stephan Thomsen vom Institut für Wirtschaftspolitik haben untersucht, inwieweit das Risiko, negative Erfahrungen mit öffentlichen Debatten zu machen, die Diskursbeteiligung von Wissenschaftler*innen beeinflusst.

We investigate the impact of childcare provision on cases of child maltreatment. For identification, we exploit a governmental reform introducing mandatory early childcare in Germany that generated large temporal and spatial variation in childcare coverage at the county-level. Using high-quality administrative data covering all reported child maltreatment cases in a county per year, our results show that maltreatment cases decline by 1.8% if a county increases childcare slots by one percentage point. Because child maltreatment leads to enormous societal costs, we provide evidence that the provision of universal public childcare can prevent some of these costs.

We investigate the impact of childcare provision on cases of child abuse and neglect in Germany between 2002 and 2014. For identification, we exploit a governmental reform introducing mandatory early child care. The implementation at the county level generated large temporal and spatial variation in childcare coverage. Our measure of child abuse and neglect comes from a unique high-quality administrative data set that covers all child protection cases at the German county level. The estimated ITT effect shows a decline by 0.24 cases per 1,000 children if a county increases childcare slots above the median, which is a reduction of 21.4 percent from the mean. This finding is of high economic relevance given the enormous costs of child abuse and neglect for the society. Our results show that the provision of universal public child care can be an effective policy to prevent part of these costs.