This Policy Brief introduces the Gini Trade Index (GTI) as a new trade synthetic key performance indicator capable of capturing the different distribution of trade values across firm characteristics and across countries. The new indicator replicates the well-known features of the traditional...

Dänemark ist seit einem Jahrzehnt eines der wirtschaftlich erfolgreichsten Industrieländer in Europa. Bei vergleichsweise hohem Wirtschaftswachstum erreichte das Land in den letzten Jahren fast Vollbeschäftigung. Ausgesprochen positiv entwickelten sich die öffentlichen Finanzen. Die...

Several developing economies witnessed a large number of systemic financial and currency crises since the 1980s which resulted in severe economic, social, and political problems. The devastating impact of the 1982 and 1994-95 Mexican crises, the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, the 1998 Russian...

This paper proposes a macro-prudential financial soundness analysis that can be used by most developing and transformation countries with or without crisis experience as well as by developed countries with limited data. The objective is to detect economic and financial sector vulnerability,...

Zwanzig Jahre nach dem Zusammenbruch der DDR wird vielfach Bilanz der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung seither gezogen. Unbestritten ist, dass im Vergleich zur Situation in der DDR vieles besser geworden ist; unbestritten ist aber auch, dass nicht alle zu Beginn des Vereinigungsprozesses gehegten...

Ignoring for a moment the debate on whether balanced budget rules are a sensible idea from a macroeconomic point of view, there remains a major problem with tying one’s fi scal policy to econometric estimates of potential variables: their notorious unreliability. With every one of its biannual...

The paper combines the short-run link between increases in aggregate demand and growth of GDP, which leads to a reduction in unemployment, with a definition of the equilibrium rate of unemployment that is independent of the growth rate. We first present evidence from the EU and the US that...

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...