Im Sommerhalbjahr wird die deutsche Konjunktur voraussichtlich eine Schwächephase durchlaufen. Darauf deutet das ifo Geschäftsklima hin, das sich im Mai und Juni merklich eingetrübt hat. Maßgeblich dafür ist die anhaltende Unsicherheit über den Fortgang der europäischen Schuldenkrise. Im...

World Economic Climate: World economic climate suffers setback - Economic Expectations: Economic expectations less positive - Inflation: Lower price expectations - Currencies: Yen and British pound seen as overvalued - Interest Rates: Decline in short-term interest rates expected - Special...

The unexpected outcome of the Brexit vote in June 2016 provides a rare macroeconomic experiment to study the aggregate consequences of a sudden change in expectations regarding future economic prospects. Using synthetic control methods, we show that forward looking households and businesses...

We provide evidence that expansionary fiscal policy lowers the return difference between more and less liquid assets—the liquidity premium. We rationalize this finding in an estimated heterogeneous-agent New-Keynesian (HANK) model with incomplete markets and portfolio choice, in which public...

Releases of key macroeconomic indicators are closely watched by financial markets. We investigate the role of expectation dispersion and economic uncertainty for the stock-market reaction to indicator releases. We find that the strength of the financial market response to news decreases with the...

Releases of key macroeconomic indicators are closely watched by financial markets. We investigate the role of expectation dispersion and economic uncertainty for the stock-market reaction to indicator releases. We find that the strength of the financial market response to news decreases with the...

We provide evidence that expansionary fiscal policy lowers return differences between public debt and less liquid assets-the liquidity premium. We rationalize this finding in an estimated heterogeneous-agent New-Keynesian model with incomplete markets and portfolio choice, in which public debt...

Precautionary pricing and increasing markups in representative-agent DSGE models with nominal rigidities are commonly used to generate negative output effects of uncertainty shocks. We assess whether this theoretical model channel is consistent with the data. Three things stand out. First,...

We exploit the unexpected announcement of an immediate, temporary VAT cut in Germany in the second half of 2020 as a natural experiment to study the spending response to unconventional fiscal policy. We use survey and scanner data on households’ consumption expenditures and their perceived...

Growth and employment in the US have been robust over the past 18 months, and President Trump frequently takes personal credit for these trends. This column explores how the US economy would have evolved without Trump. An analysis shows no difference between the post-election performance of the...