How would the German economy cope with a hard economic decoupling from China? The authors study a scenario where the global economy fragments into three distinct blocs: the G7 economies and their allies, China and her allies, as well as neutral countries. German trade with China would have to be...

We investigate the effects of input variety creation and destruction on both micro- and macroeconomic outcomes using detailed data from Belgium. Our microeconomic analysis establishes that the elasticity of downstream firms' marginal cost to supplier separation captures the area under the input...

We investigate the effects of input variety creation and destruction on both micro- and macroeconomic outcomes using detailed data from Belgium. We estimate that marginal costs rise by 0.6% for every 1% of suppliers lost. We show that this elasticity measures the area under the input demand...

This paper answers fundamental questions that have preoccupied modern economic thought since the 18th century. What is the aggregate real rate of return in the economy? Is it higher than the growth rate of the economy and, if so, by how much? Is there a tendency for returns to fall in the...

Does international financial integration boost economic growth? The empirical literature has not yet established a robust link between openness to the international capital market and economic growth. In this paper we turn to the economic history of the first era of financial globalization...