Bei Vorliegen nach unten starrer Nominallöhne erschwert niedrige Inflation Reallohnanpassungen und führt so möglicherweise zu erhöhter gleichgewichtiger Arbeitslosigkeit. Dieser Aufsatz analysiert die wachsende Evidenz zu nach unten starren Nominallöhnen. Es werden nicht nur die...

We consider a theoretical model in which unions not only take the outside option into account, but also base their wage-setting decisions on an internal reference, called the fairness reference. Wage and employment outcomes and the shape of the aggregate wagesetting curve depend on the weight...

The Great Moderation in the US economy has been accompanied by large changes in the comovements among output, hours, and labor productivity. Those changes are reflected in both conditional and unconditional second moments as well as in the impulse responses to identified shocks. Among other...

This paper surveys recent developments related to the smooth transition autoregressive (STAR) time series model and several of its variants. We put emphasis on new methods for testing for STAR nonlinearity, model evaluation, and forecasting. Several useful extensions of the basic STAR model,...

We examine the role of expectations in the Great Moderation episode. We derive theoretical restrictions in a New-Keynesian model and test them using measures of expectations obtained from survey data, the Greenbook and bond markets. Expectations explain the dynamics of inflation and interest...

Many of the recent attempts to find evidence of downward nominal wage rigidity in micro data have suffered from a number of problems, including composition bias and the effects of measurement error. In order to avoid these problems we explicitly model the determinants of wage changes and the...

In dynamic wage bargaining models it is usually assumed that individual unemployment benefits are a fraction of the average wage level. In most countries, however, unemployment benefits are instead tied to the previous level of individually earned wages. We show how the analysis has to be...

This paper substantially extends the limited available evidence on existence and extent of downward nominal wage rigidity in the European Union and the Euro Area. For this purpose we develop an econometric multi-country model based on Kahn’s (1997) histogram-location approach and apply it to...

Based on a model with imperfectly competitive labor and product markets the real consequences of labor market shocks for economies with either an earnings-related or flat-rate unemployment compensation system are considered. A distinctive feature of the analysis is the comparison of both...

Based on a two-country model it is scrutinized how the structure of the unemployment benefit system affects the consequences of idiosyncratic labor market shocks on real wages and unemployment in other countries. International spillover effects are caused by changes in world real income. The...