COVID-19 hit firms by surprise. In a high frequency, representative panel of German firms, the business outlook declined and business uncertainty increased only when the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic led to domestic policy changes: The announcement of nation-wide school closures on March 13...

COVID-19 hit firms by surprise. In a high frequency, representative panel of German firms, the business outlook declined and business uncertainty increased only when the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic led to domestic policy changes: The announcement of nation-wide school closures on March 13...

COVID-19 hit firms by surprise. In a high frequency, representative panel of German firms, the business outlook declined and business uncertainty increased only when the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic led to domestic policy changes: The announcement of nation-wide school closures on March 13...

COVID-19 hit firms by surprise. In a high frequency, representative panel of German firms, the business outlook declined and business uncertainty increased only when the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic led to domestic policy changes: The announcement of nation-wide school closures on March 13...

A regime shift towards increased inflation expectations is credited with jumpstarting the recovery from the Great Depression in the United States. Germany experienced a recovery as fast and strong in the 1930s. What role did inflation expectations play at the start of this remarkable economic...

This paper introduces a Divisia monetary aggregate for Germany and explores its information content for the Great Recession. Divisia money and the corresponding simple sum aggregate are highly correlated in normal times but begin to diverge before the crisis. Out of sample forecast analysis and...

We discuss properties of alternatives or complements to GDP as a measure of welfare at business cycle frequencies. We argue that these figures are not useful to measure the welfare costs of business cycles. First, data is not available at an appropriate quality and frequency. Second, since the...

To date, only annual information on economic activity is published for the 16 German states. In this paper, we calculate quarterly regional GDP estimates for the period between 1995 to 2020, thereby improving the regional database in Germany. The new data set will regularly be updated when...

We estimate a Markow-switching dynamic factor model with three states based on six leading business cycle indicators for Germany preselected from a broader set using the Elastic Net soft-thresholding rule. The three states represent expansions, normal recessions and severe recessions. We show...

To date, only annual information on economic activity is published for the 16 German states. In this paper, we calculate quarterly regional GDP estimates for the period between 1995 to 2021, thereby improving the regional database for Germany. The new data set will regularly be updated when...