Kiel Institute of World Economics Duesternbrooker Weg 120 24105 Kiel (Germany) Kiel Working Paper No. 1096 Keynesian and Monetarist Views on the German Unemployment Problem — Theory and Evidence by Jan Gottschalk January 2002 The responsibility for the contents of the working papers rests with the author, not the Institute. Since working papers are of a preliminary nature, it may be useful to contact the author of a particular working paper about results or caveats before referring to, or quoting, a paper. Any comments on working papers should be sent directly to the author. Keynesian and Monetarist Views on the German Unemployment Problem — Theory and Evidence Abstract: Persistently high unemployment rates in Germany have led to a long-running controversy on the causes of the unemployment problem. This paper aims to re- view the contribution of Keynesian and monetarist theories to this controversy and explores empirically their implications for the explanation of high unem- ployment in Germany using a structural vector regression approach. In addition, this paper discusses the so-called wage gap which plays an important role in the debate whether the German unemployment problem is a real wage problem. Even though this paper cannot hope to settle the unemployment controversy, it nevertheless shows why a consensus has remained elusive. JEL Classification: B22, C32, E24 Keywords: Unemployment, Phillips Curve, Structural Vector Autoregressions Jan Gottschalk International Monetary Fund Washington, D.C. Telephone: +1-202-6235876 E-mail:
[email protected] I am grateful to Jörg Döpke for many helpful comments. Any remaining errors are mine alone. I also would like to thank the Marga and Kurt Möllgaard Foundation for financial support.