What Explains the German Labor Market Miracle in the Great Recession?

Michael C. Burda, Jennifer Hunt

NBER Working Paper No. 17187
Issued in June 2011

---- Acknowledgements -----

We are grateful to Markus Poschke for many insightful discussions, and to participants in the spring Brookings Papers on Economic Activity conference, discussants Mike Elsby and John Haltiwanger and editors David Romer and Justin Wolfers, as well as Wendy Carlin, Bernd Fitzenberger, Dan Hamermesh and Johannes Schmieder for valuable comments and suggestions. Gerhard Bosch, Wolfram Brehmer, John Galbraith, Hermann Gartner, Thomas Haipeter, Bart Hobijn, Sabine Klinger, Jürgen Pechmann, Claus Schnabel, Sigrid Stallhofer, Viktor Steiner, Hans-Jürgen Urban, Susanne Wanger, Frank- Jürgen Weise and Ottheinrich von Weitershausen provided data and useful background information. Femke Schmarbeck and Jean-Philippe Garant were excellent research assistants throughout the project. Maren Brede, Christina Resnicek, and Marko Ringmann constructed an invaluable repository of Handelsblatt articles on business optimism over the period 2005-2009. Burda acknowledges support from the CRC 649 of the German Science Foundation. Hunt is also affiliated with the CEPR and IZA, and acknowledges financial support from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

return to bibliography page