Between 1995 and 2005, the German economy has experienced a phase of weak economic growth. We analyze whether this weak growth performance can be attributed to the stance of monetary conditions during that period. We show that the real effective exchange rate did have almost no dampening effects...

In the post-war economic history of West Germany, there have been two periods of significant unemployment. If we take full employment to mean a jobless rate of less than 3 %, the two periods can be dated as 1948 to 1958 and 1975 to the present. While the latter period has naturally been subject...

This paper is an empirical critique of Barry Eichengreen's interpretation of the exceptional growth performance of Western Europe during the 1950s and 1960s. The main part of the paper shows that, at least for the important case of West Germany, Eichengreen fs view of a broad-based economic and...

In recent years, there has been an intense debate among economists about the causes of unemployment in Europe. Broadly speaking, the views can be grouped into two familiar camps: those with a more (neo-)classical outlook - stressing the importance of factor price movements, institutional...