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 post-war shock. We show that this shock and its consequences were more important than...

A significant but uneven spurt of industrialization started in China during the first three decades of the 20th century at a time of political instability and national disintegration. This article argues that economic growth during this period was closely associated with the rise and expansion...

In early modern north-western Europe, real wages declined while GDP per capita was on the increase. In contrast, wage growth in Tokugawa Japan went hand in hand with output growth. Based on this finding, the paper revisits Thomas Smith’s thesis on ‘Pre-modern Economic Growth: Japan and the...

Der Begriff „Wachstum“ gehört zu den schillernden Schlagwörtern des politischen Alltags.2 Wachstum ist gut, und vieles scheint in Gefahr, wenn Wachstum ausbleibt. So führt Bundeskanzlerin Merkel in ihrer Regierungserklärung vom 10. November 2009 zum Beginn der neuen Legislaturperiode...

Mit dem Abschluss der Beitrittsabkommen undihrem Beitritt zur EU am 1. Mai 2004 haben dieneuen Mitgliedstaaten sich auch verpfl ichtet, denEuro als gemeinsame Währung einzuführen. DasDatum hängt jedoch nicht zuletzt davon ab,wann die Neumitglieder die fünf Kriterien (Inflation, Haushaltsdefi...

[...]This paper examines the recent recession, with particularattention given to developments in the labor market and in UI program financing. Its three objectives are to describedevelopments in the macroeconomy and in the labor marketthat have relevance for UI funding issues, to present...

[...]In this article, we pursue a transaction-oriented line ofresearch to help track short-term exchange rate movements. Byexamining a publicly available data set well known to currencymarket analysts—net positions held by speculators in thefutures market—we are able to document a strong...

[...]In this article, we attempt to quantify the economic effectsof the homeland security efforts of the public and privatesectors, focusing specifically on the costs of these efforts. Inpractice, it is difficult to classify which expenditures are relatedto homeland security. For this reason, we...

[...]In our view, this apparently surprising immunity of the U.S.economy to the Asia crisis reflects the fact that the original wayof thinking about the crisis was flawed. First, it focused only ondemand-side channels and ignored the supply side. Second, thedepreciation of the Asian currencies...