Starting in 1985, (West) German unions began to reduce standard hours on an industry by industry basis, in an attempt to lower unemployment. Whether work-sharing works - whether employment rises when hours per worker are reduced - is theoretically ambiguous. I test this using both individual...

Germany experienced an even deeper fall in GDP in the Great Recession than the United States, with little employment loss. Employers' reticence to hire in the preceding expansion, associated in part with a lack of confidence it would last, contributed to an employment shortfall equivalent to 40...