This paper develops a methodology for estimating the parameters of dynamic opinion or expectation formation processes with social interactions. We study a simple stochastic framework of a collective process of opinion formation by a group of agents who face a binary decision problem. The...

This paper studies the impact of outsourcing on individual wages in three European countries with markedly different labour market institutions: Germany, the UK and Denmark. To do so we use individual level data sets for the three countries and construct comparable measures of outsourcing at the...

We use weekly survey data on short-term and medium-term sentiment of German investors in order to study the causal relationship between investors' mood and subsequent stock price changes. In contrast to extant literature for other countries, a tri-variate vector autoregression for short-run...

We explore the far-reaching implications of replacing current unemployment benefit (UB) systems by an unemployment accounts (UA) system. Under the UA system, employed people are required to make ongoing contributions to their UAs and the balances in these accounts are available to them during...

This paper shows that the German labor market is more volatile than the US labor market. Specifically, the volatility of the cyclical component of several labor market variables (e.g., the job-finding rate, labor market tightness, and job vacancies) divided by the volatility of labor...

Eastern Germany's recovery from the unification shockʺ has been characterized by deep structural change with apparent repercussions for the West as well and an integration process involving both capital deepening (extensive and intensive investment) and labor thinning (net out-migration). I...

Using a newly constructed macroeconometric model for Germany and the rest of the Euro area, we investigate the macroeconomic effects of structural labor market reforms in Germany. We find that neither the fact that Germany can no longer pursue an independent monetary policy nor the possibility...