We investigate how continental European unemployment can be reduced without reducing unemployment benefits and without reducing the net income of low-wage earners. Lower unemployment replacement rates reduce unemployment, the net wage and unemployment benefits. A lower tax on labour increases...

In a constantly changing economic environment a country's ability to undertake institutional reforms is crucial to maintain economic growth and to promote the welfare of its citizens. A wide range of determinants for institutional reforms have been identified. However, the impact of trust on...

This paper compares the depth of the Recent Crisis and the Great Depression. We use a new data set to compare the drop in activity in the industrialized countries for seven activity indicators. This is done under the assumption that the Recent Crisis leveled off in mid-2009 for production and...

This paper compares the depth of the recent crisis and the Great Depression. We use a new data set to compare the drop in activity in the industrialized countries for seven activity indicators. This is done under the assumption that the recent crisis leveled off in mid-2009 for production and...

We develop a tractable macroeconomic model with employment risk and labor market search in order evaluate the effects of labor market reform on unemployment, growth, and welfare. The model has a large number of risk-averse households who can invest in risk-free physical capital and risky human...

In this paper we carry over a static version of a New Keynesian Macro Model developed in previous papers (see Bofinger, Mayer, and Wollmershäuser 2002) to a monetary union. For a similar approach see (Uhlig 2002). We will show in particular that a harmonious functioning of a monetary union...

The output multiplier turns negative before a deficit spending program expires. We show the generality of this unpleasant finding for the standard real business cycle model. We then calibrate an extended model for the US and demonstrate how fiscal stimulus slows down economic recovery from...

We analyze the deficits of the German Länder for the period from 1960 to 2005 and test a number of hypotheses derived from the literature on the political economy of public deficits. Estimating a dynamic panel data model, we find evidence for political opportunism in the spirit of Rogoff and...

Twenty-five years ago, East Germany adopted the deutschmark as its currency. In terms of East German economic development, monetary union proved to be a disaster. With virtually no warning, East Germany's few productive factories and businesses were exposed to free market competition; industrial...

Vor 25 Jahren wurde in der DDR die D-Mark eingeführt. Die Währungsunion erwies sich mit Blick auf die Wirtschaftsentwicklung als ein Desaster. Kurzfristig wurden die wenig produktiven Betriebe der DDR dem freien Handel ausgesetzt; die Industrieproduktion brach in einem Maße zusammen, das...