Based on Eurostat data the Macroeconomic Policy Institute (IMK) regularly analyses the development of labour costs and unit labour costs in Europe. This report presents labour cost trends in the private sector, disaggregated for private as well as public services, and in manufacturing industry,...

The German minimum wage was introduced in January 2015. This paper investigates the short-term macroeconomic impacts of its introduction. Therefore, an estimated VAR/VECM is used to perform forecasts that are interpreted as counterfactual to the introduction of the minimum wage and compared to...

Since the introduction of the euro, divergent nominal wage developments in member countries contributed to economic imbalances, prominently visible in the current account. Wages are factor costs and as such key determinants of the price competitiveness of the tradable sector and the domestic...

The pension systems in both Germany and Austria have undergone substantial reforms, though only one of the countries appears to have had success. Average earners in Austria will receive gross pensions equivalent to 78.1% of their average earnings, whereas in Germany they will receive just 37.5%....

We test the hypothesis that the long-term Phillips curve is downward sloping and has become flatter in the last 10 to 15 years. Controlling for the most important other factors influencing the inflation rate, we estimate cointegrations and test whether a "break" in the Phillips curve can be...

The authors analyse the macroeconomic impact of the French work-sharing reform of 2000 (a reduction of standard working hours in combination with wage subsidies). Using a vector error correction model (VECM) for several labour market variables as well as inflation and output the authors produce...