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 analyzes forward-looking rules for Swiss monetary policy in a small structural VAR model consisting of four variables taking into account data revisions for GDP. First, the paper develops an analytical method to analyze the effect of data revision errors in GDP on the ex ante or...

In „Wohlstand ohne Wachstum – Eine Schweizer Illusion“ haben wir einen breiten Überblick über dieSituation der schweizerischen Volkswirtschaft und deren Probleme gegeben. Dabei mussten einzelneThemen vertieft analysiert werden. Neben den Autoren der Studie war ein Team von drei...

Fundamentals may determine the range of real exchange rate fluctuation, through signalsof misalignment, even if they are not a major influence on the level within that range.This can explain the puzzle that more open economies experience lower real exchangerate volatility...

The volatility of real GDP growth in the United States hasfallen by half since the early 1980s relative to the priorpostwar experience.1 Inflation also stabilized around then(although only when compared with a shorter period ofvolatility in the 1970s). Some studies have argued that animprovement...