In historical accounts of the world economic crisis of the 1930s, Switzerland is known for its staunch defense of the gold standard and the rise of corporatist policies. Yet, so far, the literature has not discussed the implications of these two features. This paper tries to show how the...

Using a survey of Dutch households, we find that individuals who have experienced higher national unemployment rates over their lifetime save more and borrow less, after controlling for aggregate shocks, income, wealth, and demographics. These results are consistent with experience-based...

The core problem of both the Great Depression and the 2008/2009 economic crisis was deflation. A review of the Great Depression examines the long, slow intellectual and political process that finally led to a correct understanding of how deflation arose and the difficulty of addressing it with...

Der 13. Konjunkturzyklus nähert sich in Deutschland seinem Ende und die Sorgen sind groß, dass eine Rezession bevorsteht. Eine zunehmende Zahl von Indikatoren deuten in diese Richtung und die Fehlermargen der aktuellen Prognosen schließen dies ohnehin nicht mehr aus. Dass bislang Prognostiker...

This paper investigates the relative cyclical behavior of the pay of piece workers and hourly paid workers. It uses a unique data set of blue-collar workers in British engineering between 1926 and 1966. The statistics are obtained from the payrolls of firms belonging to the Engineering Employers...

Since there is scant evidence on the role of industrial relations in wage cyclicality, this paper analyzes the effect of collective wage contracts and of works councils on real wage growth. Using linked employer-employee data for western Germany, we find that works councils affect wage growth...

Since there is scant evidence on the role of industrial relations in wage cyclicality, this paper analyzes the effect of collective wage contracts and of works councils on real wage growth. Using linked employer-employee data for western Germany, we find that works councils affect wage growth...

In models recently published by several influential macroeconomic theorists, rigidity in the real wages that firms pay newly hired workers plays a crucial role in generating realistically large cyclical fluctuations in unemployment. There is remarkably little evidence, however, on whether...

Since there is scant evidence on the role of industrial relations in wage cyclicality, this paper analyzes the effect of collective wage contracts and of works councils on real wage growth. Using linked employer-employee data for western Germany, we find that works councils affect wage growth...

This study analyzes real wage cyclicality for male full-time workers within employer-employee matches in Germany over the period 1984-2004. Five different wage measures are compared: the standard hourly wage rate; hourly wage earnings including overtime and bonus pay; the effective wage, which...