Germany’s hyperinflation resulted from a confluence of several factors, all of which contributed to a temporary breakdown in state capacity and to unsustainable public sector deficits. Wartime debt deflated by 90% already in 1920. Informal wage indexation and failure to enforce collection of a...

Die gegenwärtige Finanzkrise ruft uns in die Geschichte zurück. Sie weckt traumatische Erinnerungen an die Krise der 1930er Jahre, in deren Folge die Weimarer Republik unterging. Sie gibt zur Sorge Anlass, ob ein Konjunktureinbruch die Fundamente unserer Sozialsysteme in ähnlicher Weise...

Recent research on international productivity comparisons with historical data has encountered large discrepancies between benchmark comparisons and time series extrapolations from other benchmarks. Broadberry and Burhop (2005) have recently argued that for Hoffmann's (1965) widely accepted time...