This paper presents some empirical results on the dynamic relationship between fiscal policy and the real exchange rate in the G3 countries since advent of floating exchange rates. This subject is of some interest given the recent shift to fiscal surpluses in the US, the annual announcement of...

We estimate the impact of compulsory schooling on earnings using the changes in compulsory schooling laws for secondary schools in West German states during the period from 1948 to 1970. While our research design is very similar to studies for various other countries, we find very different...

This paper investigates how changing the length of the school year, leaving the basic curriculum unchanged, affects learning and subsequent earnings. I use variation introduced by the West-German short school years in 1966-67, which exposed some students to a total of about two thirds of a year...

This paper implements a novel empirical approach for estimating the importance of structural factors in explaining the recent behavior of G3 current account positions. Following the contribution of Sims (1982), we employ a tractable econometric framework that can be used to answer the following...

Using data from the German Socio Economic Panel, I describe the incidence, attributes, and outcomes of continuous training received by workers in Germany between 1986 and 1989. Further training is primarily a white collar phenomenon, is concentrated among the more highly educated, and in the...

Are the large measured wage differentials associated with on-the-job computer use productivity gains or the result of unobserved heterogeneity? We examine this issue with three large cross-sectional surveys from Germany. First, we confirm that the estimated wage differentials associated with...

This paper analyzes German monetary policy in the post-Bretton Woods era. Despite the public focus on monetary targeting, in practice, German monetary policy involves the management of short term interest rates, as it does in the United States. Except during the mid to late 1970s, the Bundesbank...

Germany has experienced a high and rising rate of anti-foreigner violence during the early 1990s. To analyze the determinants of crime against foreigners we assembled a new data set on the number and nature of such crimes at the county level based on newspaper reports. We find significant...

Recent studies have documented the growth of earnings inequality in the United States during the 1980s. In contrast to these studies' findings, our analysis of micro data for the former West Germany yields virtually no evidence of growth in earnings inequality over the same period. Between 1978...

Like most Western European countries, Germany stringently regulates dismissals and layoffs. Critics contend that this regulation raises the costs of employment adjustment and hence impedes employers' ability to respond to fluctuations in demand. Other German labor policies, however, most...