In this paper, the influence of information costs on the integration of Northern European financial markets between ca. 1350 and 1560 is explored. The approach is based on splitting information costs into their constitutive components and on measuring one of these, i.e. the costs of transmitting...

This article provides a comprehensive econometric analysis of factors driving aggregate mortality rates over time. It differs from previous studies in this field by simultaneously considering an extensive set of macroeconomic, socio-economic and ecological factors as explanatory variables....

A large body of literature explains the inferior position of unskilled workersby imposing a structural shift in the labor force skill composition. This papertakes a different approach by emphasizing the connection between cyclicalvariations in skilled and unskilled labor markets. Using a...

I explore the implications of the lumpy labor adjustment as a propagation mechanism for aggregate dynamics. The model I use nests the basic RBC model with a staggeredjob-turnover in the spirit of Taylor (1980) and Calvo (1983). It extends this approach by introducing a Weibull-distributed labor...

Standard models of equilibrium unemployment assume exogenous labour market institutions and flexible wage determination. This paper models wage rigidity and collective bargaining endogenously, when workers differ by observable skill and may adopt either individualised or collective wage...

We use a Bayesian dynamic factor model to measure Germanys pre WorldWar I economic activity. The procedure makes better use of existing time seriesdata than historical national accounting. To investigate industrializationwe propose to look at comovement between sectors. We find that...

The subject of this paper tackles questions of macroeconomic integration of the South-East Asian countries South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. Economically, the analysis is based on notions of stochastic long-run convergence and business cycle synchrony in the GDPs. According tests for...

This paper examines the questions of whether and how feudal rulers were able tocredibly commit to preserving monetary stability, and of which consequences theirdecisions had for the efficiency of financial markets. The study reveals that princes were usually only able to commit to issuing a...

Eastern Germanys recovery from the unification shock has beencharacterized by deep structural change with apparent repercussions for the West as well and an integration process involving both capital deepening (extensive and intensive investment) and labor thinning (net out-migration). I propose...

This paper discusses the paper "The Source of Historical Economic Fluctuations: An Analysis using Long-Run Restrictions" by Neville Francis and Valerie A. Ramey. It argues that these authors have made great progress both in the precise measurement of labor input as well as determining the effect...