Crises and Joint Employment-Productivity Dynamics: A Comparative Perspective for European Countries

The aim of the paper is to investigate the short-term joint dynamics of productivity and employment during the economic down cycles in the EU economies over the past 20 years. Disentangling the shift in labour demand into a change of employment-productivity schedule and a movement along it, we focus on the last 2-3 crises, highlighting the peculiarities of the last recession. Namely, we demonstrate that many of the EU countries – unlike the United States –do not follow the RBC pattern. We also suggest some possible institutional fundamentals that could explain this phenomenon.