A Macroeconomic Model of West German Unemployment: Theory and Evidence

A Macroeconomic Model of West German Unemployment: Theory and Evidence
ISBN-10
3540412441
ISBN-13
9783540412441
Category
Business & Economics
Pages
125
Language
English
Published
2001
Publisher
Springer Science & Business Media
Author
Michael Reutter

Description

The book offers an explanation of unemployment based on a model of wage bargaining between a trade union and an employers' association. The theoretical model emphasizes the importance of distributional fairness in wage negotiations, especially with regard to factor taxation. This is achieved by the application of the proportional solution to the bargaining problem. It is shown, that this solution concept delivers a reasonable model of long run wage determination in which the natural rate of unemployment is independent of productivity growth. Taxes on labour and capital are identified as important determinants of equilibrium employment, the labour tax having a negative, the capital income tax having a positive effect. The latter result distinguishes the model from the standard literature. An empirical test using cointegration methods with West German data confirms the theoretical predictions.

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