This paper investigates why financial market experts misperceive the interest rate policy of the European Central Bank (ECB). Assuming a Taylor-rule-type reaction function of the ECB, we use qualitative survey data on expectations about the future interest rate, inflation, and output to discover...

The focus of this paper is the evaluation of a very popular method for potential output estimation and medium-term forecasting? the production function approach?in terms of predictive performance. For this purpose, a forecast evaluation for the three to five years ahead predictions of GDP growth...

German unifikation hit the West German economy in a prosperous and appeared as a huge demand shock at least for the first few quarters. This combination resulted in a major increase of imports from the main trading partners of West Germany, which may have helped to cushion recessionary trends...

Normalising CES production functions in the calibration of basic dynamic models allows to choose technology parameters in an economically plausible way. When variations in the elasticity of substitution are considered, normalisation is necessary in order to exclude arbitrary effects. As an...

The allocation of management and control in the business decision process finds expression in the coordination intensity between agents in the firm. We develop and test a theory, based on the organizational design literature, for the intensity in which the tax department strives to coordinate...

This paper examines German business survey data to uncover the influence of political news on expectations concerning the starting date of the European Monetary Union (EMU). In this survey the participants were asked to indicate whether they expect a punctual or a delayed start of the EMU....

Do financial market analysts use structural economic models when forecasting exchange rates? This is the leading question analysed in this paper. In contrast to other studies we use expectations data instead of observable variables. Therefore we analyse the implicit structural models forecasters...

We implement an endogeneous switching-regression model for labour productivity and firms' decision to use business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce. Our approach allows B2B usage to affect any parameter of the labour productivity equation and to properly take account of strategic complementarities...

This paper puts forward equity as an important structural element to understanding negotiation outcomes. We first advance bargaining theory to incorporate the self-serving use of equity. Agents are predicted to push equity principles which benefit them more than other parties, in particular...