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Will the (German) NAIRU Please Stand up?

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  • Franz, Wolfgang

Abstract

This paper deals with a critical assessment and a reestimation of the "non-accelerating in ation rate of unemployment" (NAIRU) for Germany. There are quite a few obstacles to perceiving the NAIRU as an understandable and easy-to-use analytical instrument, suitable for economic policy: the possibility of a non-vertical Phillips curve (e.g. in times of low in ation), the occurrence of shocks and hysteresis effects, the (mis-)measurement of important variables such as in ation expectations, cointegration issues, and a time variability of the NAIRU and its confidence intervals. Despite many serious caveats a new attempt is made to estimate a NAIRU for Germany based on conventional Phillips curves as well as on new approaches such as using direct measures of in ationary expectations, the Kalman filter method, and the residual-based bootstrap procedure (in order to estimate confidence intervals). However, by any method, simple or complex, the NAIRU is very hard to determine and subject to considerable arbitrariness.

Suggested Citation

  • Franz, Wolfgang, 2003. "Will the (German) NAIRU Please Stand up?," ZEW Discussion Papers 03-35, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:zewdip:1345
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    NAIRU; unemployment; inflation; Phillips curve; natural rate; hysteresis; supply shocks; inflation expectations; Kalman filter; bootstrap;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C22 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation

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