The DIW is the largest and oldest economics institute in Germany and conducts research in many fields of economic analysis. In this contribution to the conference celebrating the 80th birthday of this important institution I feel stimulated to address a few analytical issues, raising questions...

We examine the indicator property of the monetary indicator for inflation. Using a P*-model, Svensson (2000) shows theoretically that the relationship between these two variables is rather tenuous. The present study employs empirical evidence on the relations in his model to quantify its...

The paper discusses some widely used methods for estimating output gaps based on aggregated datafor the Euro-zone. Though these methods exhibit some common features, an empirical comparisondemonstrates that the various techniques differ substantially. In particular, the correlation of output...