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The Curse and Blessing of Training the Unemployed in a Changing Economy: The Case of East Germany after Unification (2006)

Abstract
We analyse the effects of government-sponsored training for the unemployed conducted during East German transition. For the microeconometric analysis, we use a new, large and informative administrative database that allows us to use matching methods to address potential selection bias, to study different types of programmes, and to observe labour market outcomes over 8 years. We find strong evidence that, on average, the training programmes under investigation increase long-term employ­ment pros­pects and earnings. However, as an important exception, the longer training pro­grammes are not helpful for their male participants. At least part of the explanation for this negative result is that caseworkers severely misjudged the structure of the future demand for skills.

Publication details
Download http://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/EXPORT/DL/31861.pdf
http://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/EXPORT/DL/31862.pdf
Repository University of St.Gallen - Alexandria Repository (Switzerland)
Keywords active labour market policies, causal effects, conditional independence assumption, evaluation, Germany, matching
Type Text
Language English

Cited publications (11)
Über die Wirksamkeit von FuU-Maßnahmen: Ein Evaluationsversuch mit prozessproduzierten Daten aus dem IAB (2005)
Microeconometric Evaluation of the Active Labour Market Policy in Switzerland (2002)
Active Labor Market Policies in Poland: Human Capital Enhancement, Stigmatization or Benefit Churning?
Earnings and Employment Effects of Continuous Off-the-job Training in East Germany after Unification (1999)
An Evaluation of Public Sector Sponsored Continuous Vocational Training Programs in East Germany (2000)
Identification and Estimation of Causal Effects of Multiple Treatments under the Conditional Independence Assumption (2001)
Some practical issues in the evaluation of heterogeneous labour market programmes by matching methods (2002)
Die FuU-Teilnehmer-Datei 1976-1997 (2002)
The Effectiveness and Efficiency of Active Labour Market Programmes in Poland (1997)
Is less more? A look at nonparticipation in Swiss active labour market programmes (2004)