In this paper, the structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model is used to analyze short-run and contemporaneous relationships between monetary aggregates and other macroeconomic variables. This requires imposing restrictions on the correlation structure of the VAR residuals. Different...

The unbiasedness hypothesis -- the joint hypothesis of uncovered interest parity (UIP) and rational expectations -- has been almost universally rejected in studies of exchange rate movements. In contrast to previous studies, which have used short-horizon data, we test this hypothesis using...

Germany and the United States are generally seen as the two competing systems of corporate governance. In search for a comparative welfare analysis of the financial systems, we are interested in (i) the aggregate value-added of corporate investments in the two countries and in (ii) the...

We propose a model of correlated multi-firm default with incomplete information. While public bond investors observe issuers' assets and defaults, we suppose that they are not informed about the threshold asset level at which a firm is liquidated. Bond investors form instead a prior on these...

This paper investigates whether job stability in western Germany shows any signs of decline and compares the findings to evidence for the US and the UK. Cross sectional data and calendar information from the German Socioeconomic Panel 1984-1997 are combined allowing to check possible influences...

The estimates of the structural parameters of a job separations model derived from the theory of on-the-job search are reported in this papers. Given that each employer pays the same wage to all observably equivalent workers and that wage dispersion across employers exists in the sense that...

We reexamine the expectations theory of the term structure focusing on the question how monetary policy actions indicated by changes in the very short rate affect long-term interest rates. Our main point is that the expectations hypothesis implies that very long rates should only react to...

It is argued that standard impulse response analysis based on vector autoregressive models has a number of shortcomings. Although the impulse responses are estimated quantities, measures for sampling variability such as confidence intervals are often not provided. If confidence intervals are...

Recent investigations of the transmission mechanism of German monetary policy arrive at quite different conclusions regarding its stability during the period of monetary targeting by the Bundesbank. In this study small dynamic models for the monetary sector of the German economy are analyzed in...

Alternative modeling strategies for specifying subset VAR models are considered. It is shown that under certain conditions a testing procedure based on t-ratios is equivalent to sequentially eliminating lags that lead to the largest improvement in a prespecified model selection criterion. A...