Many countries support business start-ups to spur economic growth and reduce unemployment with different programmes. Evaluation studies of such programmes commonly rely on the conditional independence assumption (CIA), allowing a causal interpretation of the results only if all relevant...

This paper discusses the reasons for the dismal labor market performance of Germany over the last three decades along with potential remedies. It argues that labor market rigidities along with a generous welfare state in conjunction with certain changes in the economic environment are important...

The real exchange rate - real interest rate (RERI) relationship is central to most open economy macroeconomic models. However, empirical support for the relationship, especially when cointegrationbased methods are used, is rather weak. In this paper we reinvestigate the RERI relationship using...

Previous assessments of nominal exchange rate determination have focused upon a narrow set of models typically of the 1970 s vintage, including monetary and portfolio balance models. In this paper we re-assess the in-sample fit and out-of-sample prediction of a wider set of models that have been...

A political miracle occurred when Germany was reunited, and at first glance an economic miracle has followed. Real incomes in the east have now reached the western level, and investment per capita has been much higher than in the w est. However, every third deutschmark spent in the east has been...