Is Germany the North Star of Labor Market Policy&quest

Ulf Rinne and Klaus Zimmermann ()

IMF Economic Review, 2013, vol. 61, issue 4, 702-729

Abstract: Germany’s recovery from an unemployment disease and its resilience to the Great Recession is remarkable. Its success story makes it a showcase for labor policy and labor market reforms. This paper assesses the potential of the German experience as a model for effective, evidence-based policymaking. Flexible management of working time (through overtime and short-time work, time accounts, and labor hoarding), social cohesion and controlled unit labor costs, combined with a rigid, incentive-oriented labor policy supported by effective program evaluation, define the characteristics of a strong reference model. Austerity, sometimes seen as core to the German model, is not viewed as a key element.

Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (55)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/imfer/journal/v61/n4/pdf/imfer201321a.pdf Link to full text PDF (application/pdf)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/imfer/journal/v61/n4/full/imfer201321a.html Link to full text HTML (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Is Germany the North Star of Labor Market Policy? (2013)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:imfecr:v:61:y:2013:i:4:p:702-729

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/41308/PS2

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in IMF Economic Review from Palgrave Macmillan, International Monetary Fund
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().