Unemployment rates, especially among youth, have increased in various countries of Europe over the last years. As labor force participation rate is one key influence on unemployment, I estimate country specific coefficients for the responsiveness of the labor force participation rates to the...

Theoretical models of downward real wage rigidity generate asymmetric wage cyclicality with real wages being rigid in "bad" times but upwardly flexible during "good". In this paper we use an administrative panel dataset from Germany to establish that such asymmetries are very salient in Germany....