We propose that the natural rate of unemployment has an active role in the business cycle, in contrast to the prevailing view that the rate is essentially constant. We demonstrate that this tendency to treat the natural rate as near-constant would explain the surprisingly low slope of the...

Using a New Keynesian Phillips curve, we document the rapid and persistent increase in the natural rate of unemployment, 𝑢𝑡 ∗ , in the aftermath of the pandemic and characterize its implications for inflation dynamics. While the bulk of the inflation surge is attributed to temporary...

Persistently high unemployment rates in Germany have led to a long-running controversy on the causes of the unemployment problem. This paper aims to re­view the contribution of Keynesian and monetarist theories to this controversy and explores empirically their implications for the explanation...