The German labor market response in the world recession – de-mystifying a miracle

Journal for Labour Market Research

Table 1 Regression of change in standardized unemployment rates on real GDP shock and OECD-employment protection index (30 OECD countries)

	Dependent variable: Δ unemployment rate
	OLS	Median regression
	Coef.	t-stat.	Coef.	t-stat.
Employment protection index	−0.269	−0.500	−0.479	−1.270
Real GDP growth	−0.140	−1.470	−0.125	−1.640
Constant	2.068	2.180	2.237	2.710
N	30
R² (pseudo R²)	0.050	0.079

Notes: Authors' own calculations using OECD data. The change in standardized unemployment rate and real GDP growth rate is for 2009.Q2 vs 2008.Q2. t-statistics for OLS are calculated using heteroscedasticity consistent standard errors; t-statistics for quantile (median) regression are calculated on the basis of bootstrap standard errors with 500 replications.