期刊名称：DIW Diskussionspapiere / Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Berlin
出版年度：2007
卷号：2007
出版社：Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Berlin
摘要：Turning unemployment into self-employment has become a major focus of German
active labour market policy (ALMP) in recent years. If effective, this would not
only reduce Germany's persistently high unemployment rate, but also increase its
notoriously low self-employment rate. Empirical evidence on the effectiveness of
such programmes is scarce. The contribution of the present paper is twofold:
first, we evaluate the effectiveness of two start-up programmes for the
unemployed. Our outcome variables include the probability of being employed, the
probability of being unemployed, and personal income. Second, based on the
results of this analysis, we conduct an efficiency analysis, i.e., we estimate
whether the Federal Employment Agency has saved money by placing unemployed
individuals in these programmes. Our results show that at the end of the
observation period, both programmes are effective and one is also efficient. The
considerable positive effects present a stark contrast to findings from
evaluations of other German ALMP programmes in recent years. Hence, ALMP
programmes aimed at moving the unemployed into self-employment may prove to be
among the most effective, both in Germany and elsewhere
