This paper explores the factors behind the time path of real spending and revenue in the West German states from 1975 to 2004. The empirical approach stresses robustness and takes into account a large set of economic and political variables. Our results suggest that common economic factors and,...

We estimate the impact of Covid-induced working from home (WFH) on offline consumer spending in urban agglomerations. Our analysis draws on postcode-level data on card transactions and WFH patterns in major German cities between January 2019 and May 2022. We address endogeneity in WFH uptake by...

This paper studies how managers plan under uncertainty. In a new survey panel on German manufacturing firms, we show that uncertainty reflects change: Planning incorporates higher subjective uncertainty about future sales growth when the firm has just experienced unusual growth, and more so if...

We estimate the impact of Covid-induced working from home (WFH) on offline consumer spending in urban agglomerations. Our analysis draws on postcode-level data on card transactions and WFH patterns in major German cities between January 2019 and May 2022. We address endogeneity in WFH uptake by...

We estimate a three-region (DE-REA-RoW) structural macroeconomic model, and we provide a counterfactual on how nominal exchange rate flexibility would have affected the German trade balance (TB) by simulating the shocks of the estimated model under a counterfactual flexible exchange rate regime....

We estimate a three-region (DE-REA-RoW) structural macroeconomic model, and we provide a counterfactual on how nominal exchange rate flexibility would have affected the German trade balance (TB) by simulating the shocks of the estimated model under a counterfactual flexible exchange rate regime....

Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) are receiving more attention than ever before. Yet the motivations for issuance vary across countries, as do the policy approaches and technical designs. We investigate the economic and institutional drivers of CBDC development and take stock of design...

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act constitutes the largest change to the US tax system since the 1980s and thoroughly alters the way in which multinational companies are taxed. Current assessments on the reform’s international impact vary widely. This article sheds light on the tax reform’s expected...

We study the effect of monetary surprise shocks on real output and the price level, conditioned on different fiscal sustainability regimes in the period 2001Q4-2021Q4. First, we estimate time-varying fiscal sustainability coefficients based on Bohn's (1998) approach through Schlicht's (2003)...

The 'starving the beast' hypothesis claims that tax cuts lead to lower public spending, rather than higher debt levels and higher taxes in the future. This paper uses the institutional setting of German fiscal federalism to its advantage in order to explore how fiscal policy reacts to exogenous...