In this paper, an Unobserved Components Model is employed to decompose German real GDP into the trend, cycle and seasonal components and the working day effect. The most important findings are: 1) The growth rate of potential output declined from 4.2 per cent in the sixties to 1.4 per cent at...

The concept of the "employment threshold" plays an important role in the public of unemployment. The employment threshold is defined as that growth rate of output which is necessary to keep employment constant despite the continuous rise in labor productivity. It is related to the Okun...