Periods of economic and financial stress traditionally give rise to profound changes in economic theory and in the way policy decisions are taken. Motivated by the recent interest in renewing macroeconomics after the global financial crisis, we collected the views of senior central bank staff in...

In view of the failure of international negotiations on climate protection and the improbability of a trend reversal in the climate changes that have already occurred, the option of climate change adaptation is becoming more and more important in climate change policy. A large number of...

In this essay I review Sylvia Nasar's long awaited new history of economics, Grand Pursuit. I describe how the book is an economic history of the period from 1850-1950, with distinguished economists' stories inserted in appropriate places. Nasar's goal is to show how economists work, but also to...

We present a theoretical framework for policy making based on the "impossible trinity" or the "trilemma" hypothesis. A simple optimization model shows that placing more weight in terms of preference for each of the three open macroeconomic policies - exchange rate stability, financial market...

German Social Democracy is faced with tremendous challenges of societal and economic changes: party dealignment, a bourgeoisifying of society, the rise of media democracy and economic and cultural globalisation. The party's reaction - a third order change in its ideological objectives and a...

The traditional theory of economic policy of the Tinbergen-Theil-type has come under severe criticism: in the ontological setting of the New Classical Macroeconomics based on the Rational Expectations Hypothesis (REH), economic policy is ineffective or neutral with respect to real variables. In...

After having been ignored for a long time by economists, happiness is becoming an object of serious research in 21st century economics. In Section 2 we sketch the present status of happiness economics. In Section 3 we consider the practical applicability of happiness economics, retaining the...

In the last years, a number of contributions has argued that monetary - and, more generally, economic - policy is finally becoming more of a science. According to these authors, policy rules implemented by central banks are nowadays well supported by a theoretical framework (the New Neoclassical...

Eine integrierte und nachhaltige Mobilitätsentwicklung stellt die Verkehrspolitik auch zukünftig vor zentrale Herausforderungen. Vor dem Hintergrund des Klimawandels und der Verknappung fossiler Energieträger wird es auch in Zukunft notwendig sein, Strategien und Konzepte zu entwickeln, die...