ABSTRACT
The previous chapter identified several institutions and other macro structures that influence economic insecurity due to job loss. To gauge the influence of these macro factors, I conduct an international comparison. The two country cases used here are the United States and Germany. Within the group of modern capitalist economies, the two countries differ greatly. In commonly used typologies of countries, they are often presented as ideal types of a certain variant of capitalism or welfare state (e.g. Esping-Andersen 1990; Hall and Soskice 2001). Thus, the institutions in the two countries differ in a plethora of ways. Consequently, differences between the two countries cannot be causally ascribed to a certain institution. Instead, it is always the nation-specific bundle of macro conditions that drives the comparative findings. The research design is therefore a “most different systems design” (Przeworski and Teune 1970). Such a design is usually applied to find out if micro mechanisms have the same effect in different contexts. Hence, the international comparison in this study can be used to identify differences, but not to explain differences.
