"After looking back at the development of the economy and the labour market over the past few years, a prediction regarding the trends in 2003 and 2004 is made based on alternative assumptions of overall economic growth. After this, selected topics are dealt with in more detail (foreign trade...

"As a reaction on high and persistent unemployment in Germany, the largest labour market reforms in post-war history were implemented between 2003 and 2005. We analyse the impact of the reform and its coincidence with an economic expansion on the efficiency of matching out of unemployment....

High and persistent unemployment has been a major problem in Germany for decades. This article presents the theoretical reasons as well as individual and macroeconomic consequences of long-term unemployment. The so called Hartz Reforms aimed at reducing unemployment by reducing inflows and...

The labor market in Germany is more sclerotic and volatile than in the US. We show theoretically that sclerosis and large volatilities are two sides of the same coin. Both may be driven by large hiring costs and low quit rates.

"This paper shows that the German labor market is more volatile than the US labor market at the business cycle frequency. Specifically, the volatility of the cyclical component of several labor market variables (e.g., the job-finding rate, the labor market tightness and vacancies) divided by the...