This paper assesses whether the economy of East Germany is catching up with the West German region in terms of welfare. While the primary measure for convergence and catching up is per capita output, we also look at other macroeconomic indicators such as unemployment rates, wage rates, and...

This paper proposes SupWald tests from a threshold autoregressive model computed with an adaptive set of thresholds. Simple examples of adaptive threshold sets are given. A second contribution of the paper is a general asymptotic null limit theory when the threshold variable is a level variable....

Critics protest loudly against restrictions imposed by politicians during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany: Mandatory masks, lockdowns, school and business closures. This paper examines (1) the extent to which these policies have indirectly contributed to limiting the number of COVID-19 cases...

The objective of the paper is to investigate to what extent business cycles co-move in Germany, France and Italy. We use a large-scale database of non-stationary series for the euro area in order to assess the effect of common versus idiosyncratic shocks, as well as transitory versus permanent...

Panel effects have been widely studied in randomly composed panels. However for many courts, panel composition stays constant. Then judges become familiar with each other. They know what to expect from each other. There is room for mutual trust. A local culture may emerge. If rejection is the...

The German Constitutional Court is radically different from the (mostly US) courts in which panel effects have been studied so widely. On the one hand, to a large extent, ideological and gender bias are neutralized by design. On the other hand, panels are not randomly composed. This makes it...