Sources of German unemployment: a structural vector error correction analysis

In this paper we analyze the sources of German unemployment within a structural vector error correction model (SVECM) framework. For this purpose we estimate a VECM model using data for unified Germany. The cointegration analysis reveals a long-run relationship between real wages, productivity and unemployment which is interpreted as a wage setting relation. Based on a reduced form subset VECM we identify structural shocks and assess their importance for unemployment by impulse response analysis, forecast error variance and historical decompositions. In contrast to previous studies for West Germany, we find that productivity, labor supply and labor demand shocks are important sources of unemployment in the long-run.

Ralf BrüggemannEmail: