We evaluate explanations for why Germany grew so quickly in the 1950s. The recent literature has emphasized convergence, structural change and institutional shake-up while minimizing the importance of the postwar shock. We show that this shock and its consequences were more important than...

Germany's hyperinflation resulted from a confluence of several factors, all of which contributed to a temporary breakdown in state capacity and to unsustainable public sector deficits. Wartime debt deflated by 90% already in 1920. Informal wage indexation and failure to enforce collection of a...

We evaluate explanations for why Germany grew so quickly in the 1950s. The recent literature has emphasized convergence, structural change and institutional shake-up while minimizing the importance of the postwar shock. We show that this shock and its consequences were more important than...

The severity of the Great Depression in Germany has sometimes been blamed on reparations in simplistic fashion. Alternative interpretations relied on American capital exports, the demise of the Gold Standard, or on malfunctions of the domestic economy, such as excessive wage increases during the...

Germany’s hyperinflation resulted from a confluence of several factors, all of which contributed to a temporary breakdown in state capacity and to unsustainable public sector deficits. Wartime debt deflated by 90% already in 1920. Informal wage indexation and failure to enforce collection of a...

This paper examines the effects of deficits spending and work-creation on the Nazi recovery. Although deficits were substantial and full employment was reached within four years, archival data on public deficits suggest that their fiscal impulse was too small to account for the speed of...

A substantial body of research agrees that unit wage cost in the industrialized economies increased substantially after World War I. For Germany, the popular industrial output estimate of Hoffmann (1965) is partly based on the assumption of constant wage shares, and shows rather high growth of...

We evaluate explanations for why Germany grew so quickly in the 1950s. The recent literature has emphasized convergence, structural change and institutional shake-up while minimizing the importance of the postwar shock. We show that this shock and its consequences were more important than...

This paper places Anglo-German growth after World War II in a long-term comparative perspective. Reviewing explanations of why post-war Germany is more dynamic than Britain, we evaluate arguments stressing institutional change, catching-up, and country-specific long-term experience. Examining...

We evaluate explanations for why Germany grew so quickly in the 1950s. The recent litera- ture has emphasized convergence, structural change and institutional shake-up while minimiz- ing the importance of the postwar shock. We show that this shock and its consequences were more important than...