Volk und Stände der Schweiz beschlossen 2001, den absoluten Schuldenstand des Staates im Konjunkturverlauf zu begrenzen. Damit hat die Eidgenossenschaft einen Weg eingeschlagen, der sich von dem der Mitglieder des europäischen Stabilitätspaktes unterscheidet. Diese halten eine positive...

We investigate how firms' market power affects the price level. In our small macro-model we show, that firms - in addition to hypothesised structural mark-up pricing power - may take advantage of favourable business cycle fluctuations. The paper provides empirical evidence for both these...

This paper investigates the claim made by Kehoe and Prescott (2002) that Switzerland and New Zealand experienced 'great depressions' in the last two decades. We question the appropriateness of the measure used by Kehoe and Prescott (GDP per working-age person) and propose a more accurate measure...