Nearly two years after the onset of the financial crises, many central banks have brought their policy interest rates down to, or close to zero. Various governments have seen their budget deficits soar. Both policies have affected exchange rates, partly through market expectations. With a...

The European Union made a number of steps not least of them the introduction of a common currency to foster the integration of the European financial markets. A number of papers have tried to gauge the degree of integration for various financial markets looking at the convergence of interest...

The European Union made a number of steps not least of them the introduction of a common currency to foster the integration of the European financial markets. A number of papers have tried to gauge the degree of integration for various financial markets looking at the convergence of interest...

We analyse stylised facts for Germany’s business cycle at the firm level. Based on longitudinal firm-level data from the Bundesbank’s balance sheet statistics covering, on average, 55,000 firms per year from 1971 to 1998, we estimate transition probabilities of a firm in a certain real sales...