Der weltweite Klimaschutz hat im vergangenen Jahr erneut einen Rückschlag erlitten. Nach vorläufi gen Schätzungen stiegen die Emissionen von Kohlendioxid (CO2 ), dem mit weitem Abstand wichtigsten Treibhausgas, im Jahre 2005 gegenüber 2004 weltweit um etwa 2,5 %; gegenüber 1990 betrug der...

Understanding the relationship between international trade and CO2 emissions is crucial for designing appropriate measures to address climate change. This article focuses on CO2 emissions as one of the trade flow determinants of the EU countries, along with other factors including remoteness,...

We study the Beaudry and Portier (2006)-hypothesis of delayed-technology diffusion and news-driven business cycles. For German data on TFP and stock prices we find qualitatively similar empirical evidence. Quantitatively, however, an impulse response analysis suggests that a substantial part of...

This paper addresses the issues of identification and dating of the Euro-zone business cycle by using the Markov-switching approach innovated by Hamilton in his analysis of the US business cycle. Regime shifts in the stochastic process of economic growth in the Euro-zone are identified by...

This paper investigates the Euro-area business cycle using a multivariate autoregressive time series model with cointegration. The cointegration restrictions help to identify permanent and transitory shocks which form the stochastic part of trend and cyclical GDP, respectively. The...

With disparities in national unemployment rates reaching record levels, the debate on fiscal stabilisers in Europe has gained new momentum. Can a European unemployment insurance scheme help to absorb asymmetric shocks and bring about the desired level of macroeconomic stabilisation? What should...

Labour productivity distribution (dispersion) is studied within the framework of statistical physics and the result is compared with the outcome of the empirical analysis. Superstatistics is presented as a natural theoretical framework for the productivity distribution. The demand index ê is...