This study assesses the claim that the Austrian economy depends mainly on the German business cycle. Controlling for possible influences from the U.S. economy, it is confirmed that the Austrian and German industrial production indexes have a common long-term stochastic trend and the German...

Die Arbeit untersucht die Aussagen des Sachverständigenrates zur Beurteilung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung (SVR) bezüglich der Stabilität der Finanzmärkte. Die systemischen Risiken von Finanzmärkten werden vom SVR klar angesprochen, die Notwendigkeit einer staatlichen Regulierung...

The paper provides an account of the meaning and implications of TARGET2 in the eurozone (EZ) balance of payments crisis. In this context, it discusses Hans-Werner Sinn's thesis about a stealth bail-out of the EZ periphery by the ECB from a heterodox perspective. Financial liberalisation, a...

The resilience of the German banking system is studied on the semiaggregated level from 1968 to 2022. We distinguish between Large Banks, Regional Banks, Landesbanken, Sparkassen and Credit Unions and study their z-scores as a measure of resilience in response to the monetary policy stances of...

This paper examines the heterogeneous effects of the ECB's monetary policies on the resilience of the German banking system between 1999 to 2022. We distinguish between the main bank types in Germany: Large Banks, Regional Banks, Sparkassen, Landesbanken and Credit Unions. We proxy bank-type...

There is no disputing Germany's dominant economic role within the eurozone (EZ) and the broader European Union. Economic leadership, however, entails responsibilities, especially in a world system of monetary production economies that compete with each other according to political and economic...

The "quiet life hypothesis (QLH)" posits that banks enjoy the advantages of market power in terms of foregone revenues or cost savings. We suggest a united approach to measure competition and efficiency simultaneously to test this hypothesis. We estimate bank-specific Lerner indices as measures...

Based on annual data for growth and inflation forecasts for Germany covering the time span from 1970 to 2007 and up to 17 different forecasts per year, we test for a possible asymmetry of the forecasters' loss function and estimate the degree of asymmetry for each forecasting institution using...

This paper investigates the causes behind the euro debt crisis, particularly Germany's role in it. It is argued that the crisis is not primarily a "sovereign debt crisis" but rather a (twin) banking and balance of payments crisis. Intra-area competitiveness and current account imbalances, and...