This paper reports the results of a survey among private sector economists about credibility and transparency of central banks. In line with the survey of Alan Blinder among central bankers, we asked participants in Ifo s World Economic Survey to answer questions on the importance and...

Obgleich es zahlreiche Institutionen gibt, die das deutsche Bruttoinlandsprodukt vorhersagen, mangelt es aktuell an sogenannten "Nowcasting"-Modellen, deren Prognosegüte mit jedem neu verfügbaren, das deutsche Bruttoinlandsprodukt beeinflussenden Datenpunkt verbessert wird. In der folgenden...

This paper reports the results of a survey among private sector economists about credibility and transparency of central banks. In line with the survey of Alan Blinder among central bankers, we asked participants in Ifo's World Economic Survey to answer questions on the importance and...

Classical growth convergence regressions fail to account for various sources of heterogeneity and nonlinearity. While recent contributions are able to address either the one or the other, we present a simple two-step method to address both issues. Based on a slightly augmented version of a...

A firm that faces insufficient supply of labor can either increase the wage offer to attract more applicants, or reduce the hiring standard to enlarge the pool of potential employees, or do both. This simultaneous adjustment of wages and hiring standards has been emphasized in a classical...