Aggregated output in industrialized countries has become less volatile over the past decades. Whether this ?Great Moderation? can be found in firm level data as well remains disputed. We study the evolution of firm level output volatility using a balanced panel dataset on German firms that...

We analyse stylised facts for Germany's business cycle at the firm level. Based on longitudinal firm-level data from the Bundesbank's balance sheet statistics covering, on average, 55,000 firms per year from 1971 to 1998, we estimate transition probabilities of a firm in a certain real sales...

This paper discusses whether the integration of international financial markets affects business cycle fluctuations. In the framework of a new open economy macro-model, we show that the link between financial openness and business cycle volatility depends on the nature of the underlying shock....