Anton Nivorozhkin

Start me up: The effectiveness of a self-employment programme for needy unemployed people in Germany

Abstract We studied the effect of participation in a new business start-up scheme for needy unemployed people in Germany. The programme was introduced at the beginning of the year 2005 together with a new means-tested benefit system. The aim of the programme was to promote entrepreneurial activities among unemployed people. On the level of society such a programme aims at reducing unemployment, promoting entrepreneurship and potentially creating new work places. On the individual level, the programme may help needy unemployed to obtain gainful employment and to become independent of welfare benefits. We used a sample of participants and of an adequate control group and concentrate on studying the effect of the programme on the individual level. We found positive and sustained effects of the programme. Even by the time when nearly no participant receives the start-up subsidy, the treatment reduces considerably the proportion of registered unemployed and benefit recipients among programme participants.

Job search requirements for older workers: the effect on reservation wages

Purpose - The goal of the paper is to investigate how reservation wages of older unemployed welfare recipients change once they are no longer subject to standard job search requirements. Design/methodology/approach - The authors apply a regression discontinuity design. Findings - Consistent with theoretical predictions, the authors’ findings indicate that eliminating job search requirements will tend to increase reservation wages. Practical implications - The results correspond to previous findings in the literature that monitoring leads to lower accepted wages and increased exits rates from unemployment, and that it may be a successful policy measure to keep older workers in the labor market. Originality/value - Monitoring of job search effort has been shown to be an effective method of activating unemployed people, but little evidence has been found on the effect of activation measures on older workers.

New estimates of the risk and duration of registered unemployment in urban Russia

This paper examines whether deregistration from the employment office decreases unemployment duration. The study is based on Russian individual-level data from the Public Employment Office of Rostov-on-Don combined with information from the 2000 household survey. Using a proportional hazard model, I find a significant excess in job finding rates following employment office deregistration. The predicted risk of getting a job is non-monotonic and tends to decrease at longer duration intervals. An important finding is that only 29% of the unemployed obtained a job simultaneously with deregistering from the Public Employment Office. Others continued to search for job on their own.

Leistungen zur Teilhabe am Arbeitsleben – Rehabilitanden der Bundesagentur für Arbeit und der Deutschen Rentenversicherung im Vergleich

OBJECTIVE The Federal Employment Agency (Bundesagentur für Arbeit, BA) and the German Pension Insurance (Deutsche Rentenversicherung, DRV) are the major institutions responsible for vocational rehabilitation (VR) in Germany. The following paper compares the characteristics of persons in vocational rehabilitation and the utilization of rehabilitation services between those two institutions and presents short-term developments. METHODS Administrative data of the BA and the DRV were made comparable. The study analyses persons who have completed VR between 2011 and 2015. RESULTS We observe an increased use of VR services for both the BA and the DRV. Furthermore, the results show an absolute and proportional increase in persons being employed at the time of approval of VR and in persons receiving technical assistance. The clients of the BA are younger and better educated than the clients of the DRV. The clients of the DRV are more frequently employed at time of approval and receive mainly technical assistance. CONCLUSIONS Though due to different regulatory responsibilities, BA and DRV clients in VR differ particularly in age, we observe comparable developments in the populations addressed and the interventions provided.