Unemployment Surges in the EU: The Role of Risk Premium Shocks

Bas Bakker, Marta Korczak and Krzysztof Krogulski

No 2019/056, IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund

Abstract: In the last decade, over half of the EU countries in the euro area or with currencies pegged to the euro were hit by large risk premium shocks. Previous papers have focused on the impact of these shocks on demand. This paper, by contrast, focuses on the impact on supply. We show that risk premium shocks reduce the output level that maximizes profit. They also lead to unemployment surges, as firms are forced to cut costs when financing becomes expensive or is no longer available. As a result, all countries with risk premium shocks saw unemployment surge, even as euro area core countries managed to contain unemployment as firms hoarded labor during the downturn. Most striking, wage bills in euro area crisis countries and the Baltics declined even faster than GDP, whereas in core euro area countries wage shares actually increased.

Keywords: WP; risk premium shock; risk premium; interest rate; GDP; Risk premia; interest rates; Euro area crisis; global economic; fincanial crisis; debt ratio; risk premium surge; unemployment surge; financing cost; Return on investment; Unemployment; Employment; Sovereign bonds; Baltics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33
Date: 2019-03-18
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mac
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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