This paper first discusses concepts, definitions and theoretical explanations for international business cycles. This is followed by an overview of previous empirical studies. We then argue that for ex post analyses the output gap is a univariate quantification of the business cycle that is...

This text presents the economic forecast conducted by the KOF Swiss Economic Institute at the ETH Zurich as published on 26 March 2013. After an introduction describing the current situation and crucial assumptions underlying the forecast, we summarise the key results for Switzerland. Then we...

This paper investigates the R&D persistence of R&D active firms in different markets with different intensities of competition, based on firm-level panel data for the period 1996-2008. In a dynamic setting of the empirical model it turns out that persistence is strongly related to market...

Der hier vorgestellte multisektorale Sammelindikator für die Schweizer Gesamtkonjunktur weist gegenüber vergleichbaren Frühindikatoren für die Entwicklung des Bruttoinlandprodukts (BIP) eine Reihe von methodischen Innovationen auf und berücksichtigt eine vergleichsweise grosse Anzahl von...