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...

Die deutsche Wirtschaft bleibt auf Wachstumskurs. Das reale Bruttoinlandsprodukt wird im Jahresdurchschnitt 2010 um gut 3 ¼ Prozent über dem Vorjahresniveau liegen. Das Wirtschaftsleben hierzulande hat mehr und mehr vom Krisen- in den Normalmodus gewechselt, ist dort aber noch nicht ganz...

Die zurückliegende Stagnation in Deutschland wird in den Wirtschaftswissenschaften unterschiedlich beurteilt. Während der „Mainstream“ die Auffassung vertritt, dass die wirtschaftliche Schwäche vor allem strukturell bedingt war, und Reformen auf der Angebotsseite für erforderlich hält,...

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...

The authors study a simple model of an asset market with informed and non-informed agents. In the absence of non-informed agents, the market becomes information efficient when the number of traders with different private information is large enough. Upon introducing non-informed agents, the...