A macroeconomic disequilibrium model is developed for the Federal Republic of Germany. Starting with a microeconomic model of firm's behaviour, the optimal dynamic adjustment of employment and investment is derived. The model of the firm is complemented by an explicite aggregation procedure which allows to derive macroeconomic relations. The model is estimated with macroeconomic data for the Federal Republic of Germany. An important feature is the consistent introduction of dynamic adjustment into a model of the firm. A new method is the particular approach of a delayed adjustment of employment and investment. The estimation results show significant underutilizations of labour and capital and indicate the importance of supply constraints for imports and exports. As the most prominent result, they reveal the importance of the slow adjustment of employment and investment for the macroeconomic situation in Germany and especially for the persistence of high unemployment in the eighties.

Contenu

I Theory.- 1 Disequilibrium models.- 1.1 Recent developments in Keynesian macroeconomics.- 1.2 Microfoundations of wage and price rigidity.- 1.2.1 The rigidity of prices.- 1.2.2 The stickiness of wages.- 1.2.3 Theories of wage and price change.- 1.3 Fix-price models.- 1.4 Dynamic factor demand.- 1.4.1 Theoretical and empirical work on adjustment costs.- 1.4.2 Specification of adjustment costs.- 1.4.3 The role of time for adjustment.- 2 The basic model.- 2.1 Assumptions.- 2.1.1 Wages, prices, and capital costs.- 2.1.2 The concept of micro-markets.- 2.1.3 The dynamic decision structure.- 2.2 The optimization program of the firm.- 2.2.1 Output.- 2.2.2 Employment.- 2.2.3 The investment decision.- 2.2.3.1 The optimal capital stock.- 2.2.3.2 The derivation of the optimal capital-labour ratio.- 2.3 Regimes on the goods and labour market.- 2.4 Appendix A.- 2.5 Appendix B: list of symbols.- 3 Extensions of the basic model.- 3.1 Overtime working.- 3.2 Dynamic input adjustment.- 3.2.1 Dynamic adjustment of employment.- 3.2.2 Investment and capital-labour substitution.- 3.3 Endogenous wages and prices.- 4 The aggregation of micro-markets.- 4.1 The distribution of micro-markets.- 4.2 Derivation of the CES-property.- 4.3 The quality of the CES-approximation.- II Empirical estimation.- 5 Specification of the model.- 5.1 The recursive structure.- 5.2 The treatment of expectations.- 5.3 The choice of technique.- 5.4 Calculation of demand - the trade equations.- 5.5 Estimation of the minimum conditions.- 5.5.1 Determination of output.- 5.5.2 Labour demand and employment.- 5.6 The demand for capital.- 5.7 Appendix C: data sources and definitions.- 6 Results.- 6.1 Capital-labour substitution.- 6.2 Trade.- 6.3 Output and overtime working.- 6.4 Employment.- 6.5 Capital formation.- Conclusion.