There is a significant variation in demographic development among European Union (EU) member states. Using the UN’s Population Prospects, we examine how different retirement ages in selected EU countries would lead to comparable relations between the working-age population and pensioners in...

Applied time series research often faces the challenge that (a) potentially relevant variables are unobservable, (b) it is fundamentally uncertain which covariates are relevant. Thus cointegration is often analyzed in partial systems, ignoring potential (stationary) covariates. By simulating...

We contribute to the recent literature on the economic effects of those weather conditions that deviate from their regular seasonal pattern. To this end we use local temperature and snow measurements across Germany to analyze their impact on German monthly total industrial and...

While recurring and regular variations of weather conditions are implicitly addressed by standard seasonal adjustment procedures of economic time series, extraordinary weather outcomes are not. We propose a way of measuring aggregate abnormal weather conditions based on available local...

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...

In diesem Papier wird an Hand eines Vektorfehlerkorrekturmodells (VECM) für den französischen Arbeitsmarkt untersucht, wie sich die dort Anfang 2000 eingeführte Verkürzung der Regelarbeitszeit in Verbindung mit Subventionen der Sozialversicherungsbeiträge ausgewirkt hat. Theoretisch sind...

If workers gain an insider position through past activity, young workers will bear the resulting outsider unemployment burden. In a world where productivity of employed workers rises because of learning-by-doing, and where labor demand is sufficiently elastic, preventing this unemployment (by...

Distortionary effects of inflation on relative prices are the main argument for inflation stabilization in macro models with sticky prices. Under indexation of nonoptimized prices those models imply a nonlinear and dynamic impact of inflation on the cross-sectional price dispersion...

We investigate the controversial issue whether unemployment is related to productivity growth in the long run, using U.S. data in a framework of infrequent mean shifts. Tests find (endogenously dated) shifts around 1974, 1986, and 1996, system techniques indicate that the shifts are common...