Montchrétien was definitely mercantilist. He praises the ancients, their honors and their self-discipline, but notes, like Serra, that there was no concept of Political Economy in Antiquity. The words, however, appear for the first time in the pseudoaristotelian Oeconomica II, where the...

The European crisis appears as the n-th “this time is different” episode of the financial liberalisation sequence cum fixed exchange rates, capital flows from the centre to the periphery, housing bubble, current account (CA) deficit and indebtedness, default. In the author’s view, although...

The history of the German cooperative banks has enjoyed renewed attention in recent years. This applies specifically to the current cen-tral cooperative bank, DZ BANK, whose origin lies in the Prussian Central Cooperative Bank (‹Preußenkasse›) founded in 1895. What previous research has in...

The notion of a nation-specific inflation trauma among the German population is ubiquitous in the public debate in Germany and beyond. Because of its experience with hyperinflation in 1923, the German population fears rising prices and favors stability-oriented monetary as well as fiscal policy....

This paper uses evidence from German-speaking central Europe to address open questions about the Consumer and Industrious Revolutions. Did they happen outside the early-developing, North Atlantic economies? Were they shaped by the “social capital” of traditional institutions? How were they...

Information provision is an important part of all mechanisms which give employees voice at work. This paper considers the law on information disclosure for joint consultation and collective bargaining in three countries, Germany, France, and the UK, chosen for their distinctive legal and...

Histories of southern German firms during the Second World War suggest that Switzerland provided many highly-skilled labourers for Germany’s war effort, but no study has to date quantified these contributions. This paper examines the labour exchanges between the two countries, focusing on...

Abstract Following closely my remit, this paper reviews and assesses Asian economic development in the recent post-1980 period, as well as over the somewhat longer time-span since WWII. Its chief purpose is to draw analytical and policy implications from this experience. This is a challenging...

Demographic behaviour is influenced not just by attributes of individuals but also by characteristics of the communities in which those individuals live. A project on ‘Economy, Gender, and Social Capital in the German Demographic Transition’ is analyzing the longterm determinants of...

Less than half of the people with migration background living in Germany possess foreign citizenship. Hence, using citizenship to analyze economic issues of immigration may be problematic for two reasons. On the one hand, a quite substantial share of persons with migration background is...