In 2000, the Lisbon Agenda set out an ambitious plan to make the EuropeanUnion “the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy inthe world”. The Agenda suggested a need for action on three broad fronts:the first explicitly macroeconomic; the second explicitly microeconomic;the third...

Renewed interest in economic growth has encouraged studies of how different sectors have contributed to convergence trends. Comparing productivity levels across countries is notoriously tricky, but one attractive approach has been to deflate sector value added by the PPP exchange rate for GDP....

[...]This article explores the inflation puzzle andinvestigates whether compensation has acted as either atemporary restraint on inflation or as the underlying sourceof a new inflation regime.2 After reviewing the recent behavior of inflation, we specify and estimate a traditionalprice-inflation...

Estimates of the marginal product of capital can help forecast economic growth, test competing businesscycle theories, and perform cost-benefit analysis. This paper presents annual and quarterly estimatesof the marginal product of capital in the U.S. separately for the residential and...

We develop a stylized model of economic growth with bubbles. In this model, financial frictions leadto equilibrium dispersion in the rates of return to investment. During bubbly episodes, unproductiveinvestors demand bubbles while productive investors supply them. Because of this, bubbly...

Seitdem es Steuern gibt, wurden wieder und wieder Reformvorschläge vorgelegt, die das Steuersystemeinfacher und gerechter gestalten sollten. Was dem Steuerzahler aber unter diesem Leitbildschmackhaft gemacht wurde, führte im Ergebnis häufig zum schlichten Gegenteil der Intention: Dasdeutsche...

The Great War of 1914-18 constituted a major rupture for the economies of Europe in several respects. It marked the end of almost a century of uninterrupted economic growth. It ended a long period of near-universal currency stability, and set in motion a painful process of de-globalisation. It...

We evaluate explanations for why Germany grew so quickly in the 1950s. The recent literature has emphasized convergence, structural change and institutional shake-up while minimizing the importance of the post-war shock. We show that this shock and its consequences were more important than...

Today efficient states can be represented as sovereign authorities governing successful economies that provide high, stable and rising standards of welfare for their citizens. Such states emerged slowly and painfully over centuries of geopolitical rivalry and conflict among aristocracies for...

This paper investigates whether ICTs hardware and services play a complementary role inboosting economic growth. The main argument is that investments in ICTs fixed capital are anecessary but not sufficient condition leading to productivity gains, above all in late adoptercountries. Their...