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Active Labor Market Policies in Central Europe: First Lessons

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Employment Policy in Transition

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Abstract

In the first years of their transition to a market economy the economies of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) experienced a sharp rise in open unemployment, that reached comparable levels to the worse performing Western economies.1 Having continuous difficulties with the fight against inflation, governments in CEE had thus far few possibilities to reflate their economies and tried early on to combat the incidence of unemployment with active labor market policies (ALMP). The rise of unemployment has, however, increasingly involved a “crowding out” of resources for ALMP in favor of unemployment benefit payments.

The main exception to this statement is the Czech Republic where open unemployment stayed very low in the first years of the transition process.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh

    Hartmut Lehmann

  2. ITA, Bonn

    Hartmut Lehmann

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  1. Hartmut Lehmann
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Munich, Ludwigstraße 28 RG, 80539, Munich, Germany

    Regina T. Riphahn Ph.D.

  2. Department of Economics Birkbeck College, University of London, 7-15 Gresse Street, London, W1P 2LL, UK

    Dennis J. Snower

  3. Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), Schaumburg-Lippe-Straße 7-9, 53113, Bonn, Germany

    Klaus F. Zimmermann

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© 2001 Springer-Verlag · Berlin Heidelberg

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Lehmann, H. (2001). Active Labor Market Policies in Central Europe: First Lessons. In: Riphahn, R.T., Snower, D.J., Zimmermann, K.F. (eds) Employment Policy in Transition. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-56560-1_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-56560-1_13

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-41166-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-56560-1

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