Both common macroeconomic shocks and country-specific developments have subjected the flexibility of wage setting mechanisms in the euro area to a stress test in recent years. Against this background, this paper takes a fresh look at wage flexibility in EMU and attempts to draw a few lessons...

This note gives a brief survey of main theoretical and empirical issues with respect to the NAIRU concept. According to modern labour market literature NAIRU is defined as the rate of unemployment at which inflation stabilises in the absence of any wage-price surprises. Conventional thinking...

This paper deals with trends and cycles of unemployment and labour-force participation. Empirical evidence on both trends and cyclical movements in unemployment and participation is presented. Some of the mechanisms behind the observed developments are also analysed, examining how well they fit...

The paper looks at the main challenges to raise potential growth in the EU. It examines recent progress made regarding the structural reform efforts in EU product, labor, and financial markets, and it attempts to assess their impact on overall macroeconomic performance in terms of output and...

Austria is among the very few countries in the European Union which have managed to maintain comparatively low unemployment rates and high employment rates. This study looks at the price and quantity adjustment mechanisms in the Austrian labour market which may have contributed to this...