Sector investing aims to guide investors in identifying undervalued securities. Knowing which sectors flourish at different phases of the business cycle, investment returns may be boosted by increasing holdings in securities from strengthening sectors and reducing holdings in weakening ones. As...

This paper aims to identify economic shocks in four developed countries that authorize different buyback programs. Previous research has revealed that there are few public debates about buyback activities and economic conditions. According to the free cash flow hypothesis, the total payout...

This paper develops a novel and tractable empirical approach to estimate the cycle in schooling participation decisions, which we denominate the schooling cycle. The estimation procedure is based on unobserved components time series models that decompose higher education enrollment rates into a...

The objective of this paper is to propose an analytical framework to examine the foundations of the theory of efficient growth. The theory of efficient growth is a newly developed theory based on the principles of the neoclassical framework. It argues that an economy grows efficiently under two...

In the monthly ifo Business Survey around 9,000 German companies answer questions about their current business situation, expectations and plans for the near future as well as on other business variables. This paper provides an overview of all regular questions (monthly, quarterly, bi-annually,...