Recent attention has focused on the UK's productivity gap in the retail sector. Figure 1 shows an estimate of labour productivity in retail across countries, using output per hour worked. The UK lies well behind the US, France and Germany. Reynolds at al (2005) contribute to this debate by...

Das Handwerk gilt in Hinblick auf den Umsatz und die Beschäftigung als Konjunkturstabilisator. Dieser Einschätzung widersprechen allerdings verschiedene wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen. Welche Kräfte hier prozyklisch und welche antizyklisch wirken, lässt sich durch eine...

This paper uses comprehensive high-quality panel data from official statistics for exporting enterprises to investigate the micro-structure of the recent export recovery in 2010 in manufacturing industries in Germany after the great recession of 2008/2009. Almost all of the increase in exports...

The expansion of Western European production accelerated in the first half of 1997. Exports were the main engine, driven by a devaluation of European currencies and strong growth abroad. Domestic demand also picked up somewhat led by investment in machinery and equipment. Inflation remained at...

We study the Beaudry and Portier (2006)-hypothesis of delayed-technology diffusion and news-driven business cycles. For German data on TFP and stock prices we find qualitatively similar empirical evidence. Quantitatively, however, an impulse response analysis suggests that a substantial part of...

Das Papier untersucht die Rolle von Frühindikatoren bei der Erstellung von Konjunkturprognosen. Gegenstand der Analyse sind die Fragen: Welche Kriterien sollten Frühindikatoren generell erfüllen bzw. was sollten Frühindikatoren leisten? Inwieweit erfüllen die gängigen Indikatoren diese...

Globalization has effected business cycle developments in OECD countries and has increased activities of firms across national borders. This paper analyzes whether these two developments are linked. We use a new firm-level dataset on the foreign activities of German firms to test whether foreign...

This paper studies the long-run relationship between consumption, asset wealth and income - the consumption-wealth ratio - in Germany, based on data from 1980 to 2003. Earlier papers for the Anglo-Saxon economies have documented that departures of these three variables from their common trend...