The Curse and Blessing of Training the Unemployed in a Changing Economy: The Case of East Germany After Unification

By M. Lechner, Ruth Miquel, Conny Wunsch. Social Science Research Network, 2007

222 citations recorded by the source corpus.

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 eight 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.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Statistics and Probability

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/90cb5c1d6ae9febd6c1ee690886b2a06f7cc5fc4

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Citations in the corpus

Active Labour Market Policy Effects for Women in Europe - A Survey (2006, unknown): “and Rosholm (2003), Cavaco, Foug` ere and Pouget, (2005), Gerfin and Lechner (2002), Kluve, Lehmann and Schmidt (1999), Lalive, Van Ours and Zweimueller (2000), Lechner, Miquel and Wunsch (2004), Lechner, Miquel and Wunsch (2008) , Lubyova and Van Ours (1999), Raaum, Torp and Zhang (2002a, 2002b), ”
Before and after the Hartz Reforms: The Performance of Active Labour Market Policy in Germany (2006, unknown): “as outcome measure and find positive effects in the long run for programmes that provide specific professional skills (Fitzenberger and Speckesser 2005) as well as for short training and retraining programmes (Lechner et al. 2005).”
The Effectiveness of European Active Labor Market Policy (2006, unknown): “It is still common to focus solely on short-run impacts, though some more recent studies try to assess long-term effects if suitable data are available (e.g. Lechner et al. 2004, 2005).”
The individual experience of unemployment. (2012, background): “A few programs involving job training (skill upgrading) and retraining (e.g., training in new areas) were also examined (Daniels et al. 2000, Fitzenberger & Speckesser 2007, Lechner et al. 2007).”
Get Training or Wait? Long-Run Employment Effects of Training Programs for the Unemployed in West Germany (2006, unknown): “In contrast, Lechner et al. (2005a) report quite favorable evidence for RT.”
Employment effects of the provision of specific professional skills and techniques in Germany (2007, methodology): “As a first step to contrast the initial negative lock–in effects of the programs with the later positive program effect, we calculate the cumulated effects of the program 12, 24, and 36 months after the beginning of the program (see Lechner et al., 2005a,b, for a similar exercise).”
The effectiveness of European active labor market programs (2010, methodology): “…Training Early 90s Duration Positive t2:59 Lechner (2000) Training 1990–1994 Matching Insignificant t2:60 Lechner et al. (2004) Training 1993–2002 Matching Positive t2:61 Lechner et al. (2005) Training 1993–2002 Matching Positive t2:62 Hungary Micklewright and Nagy (2005) Services and…”
Are Training Programs More Effective When Unemployment Is High? (2009, methodology): “We use the same administrative data sources as Lechner, Miquel, and Wunsch (2005) which combine information from social insurance records on employment, data on benefit receipt during unemployment and information on participation in training programs.”
Retaining through training even for older workers (2013, background): “Positive effects are instead found on the future employment stability (Crépon et al., 2007; Lechner et al., 2008) and Jones et al. (2009) show that training is signiﬁcantly and positively associated with job satisfaction.”
Turning Unemployment into Self-Employment: Effectiveness of Two Start-Up Programmes (2008, background): “Meager (1996) summarizes findings for five countries (Denmark, France, West Germany, UK and US) and concludes that the evidence presented does not allow a conclusive assessment of the overall effectiveness of such schemes.”