The use of unobserved component models to estimate the NAWRU has been strongly criticized due to some excessive pro-cyclicality at the sample end, especially in the neighbourhood of turning points. To address this criticism, the European Commission now uses a model-based approach where the...

This paper analyses the effect of labour taxes on Euro area unemployment. Empirical estimates obtained so far can be criticised as being spurious because the regressions generally lack non-measurable variables constituting the reservation wage that can possibly be non stationary. Here we...