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The German labour market reforms in a European context: A DSGE analysis

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  • Busl, Claudia
  • Seymen, Atılım

Abstract

While a widespread consensus exists among macroeconomists that the German labour market reforms in 2003-2005 have successfully contributed to the decline of the unemployment rate, critics claim that the reforms led to wage restraint and consequently consumption dampening accompanied by beggar-thy-neighbour effects, harming Germany's trade partners. We check up on the validity of these arguments by means of a two-country DSGE model featuring intra-industry trade and labour market frictions. Our results suggest that the disproportional growth of GDP (labour productivity) in comparison to consumption (wages) are only partially driven by the reforms. However, we do not find that the reforms contribute to Germany's trade surplus and cause negative spillovers to trading partners in terms of output and employment.

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  • Busl, Claudia & Seymen, Atılım, 2013. "The German labour market reforms in a European context: A DSGE analysis," ZEW Discussion Papers 13-097, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:zewdip:13097
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    Cited by:

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    2. Beissinger, Thomas & Chusseau, Nathalie & Hellier, Joël, 2015. "Offshoring and Labour Market Reforms: Modelling the German Experience," IZA Discussion Papers 8920, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Fries, Claudia, 2015. "Spillover effects of labour market reforms in a three-country world," ZEW Discussion Papers 15-040, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    4. Ruppert, Kilian & Stähler, Nikolai, 2020. "Household savings, capital investments and public policies: What drives the German current account?," Discussion Papers 41/2020, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    5. Busl, Claudia & Seymen, Atılım, 2013. "Die Bestimmung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Effekte der Hartz Reformen in Deutschland," ZEW Wachstums- und Konjunkturanalysen, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, vol. 16(4), pages 6-7.
    6. Thomas Beissinger & Nathalie Chusseau & Joel Hellier, 2014. "Offshoring, employment, labour market reform and inequality: Modelling the German experience," Working Papers 330, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    7. Johannes Huber & Christian Scharrer, 2024. "The fiscal and intergenerational burdens of brakes and subsidies for energy prices," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 31(5), pages 1249-1273, October.
    8. Hoffmann, Mathias & Kliem, Martin & Krause, Michael & Moyen, Stéphane & Šauer, Radek, 2021. "Rebalancing the euro area: Is wage adjustment in Germany the answer?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    9. Scharrer Christian, 2021. "The effects of financing rules in pay-as-you-go pension systems on the life and the business cycle," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 22(4), pages 489-511, November.
    10. Beissinger, Thomas & Chusseau, Nathalie & Hellier, Joël, 2016. "Offshoring and labour market reforms in Germany: Assessment and policy implications," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 314-333.
    11. Timo Bettendorf & Miguel A. León‐Ledesma, 2019. "German Wage Moderation and European Imbalances: Feeding the Global VAR with Theory," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 51(2-3), pages 617-653, March.
    12. Bursian, Dirk & Goldbach, Stefan & Jochem, Axel & Nagengast, Arne & Schön, Matthias & Stähler, Nikolai & Vetlov, Igor, 2020. "A model-based analysis of the German current account surplus," Technical Papers 03/2020, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    13. Hochmuth, Brigitte & Moyen, Stephane & Stähler, Nikolai, 2019. "Labor market reforms, precautionary savings, and global imbalances," Discussion Papers 13/2019, Deutsche Bundesbank.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    labour market reforms; search and matching; spillover; dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • E61 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination
    • E65 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Studies of Particular Policy Episodes
    • F42 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - International Policy Coordination and Transmission
    • J38 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Public Policy
    • J63 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs

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