The ECB’s recently launched Expanded Asset Purchasing Programme is similar to the quantitative easing programmes undertaken by the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan. While theory suggests that quantitative easing can stimulate economic growth and spur inflation via...

We propose a simple modification of Hamilton’s (2018) time series filter that yields reliable and economically meaningful real-time output gap estimates. The original filter relies on 8 quarter ahead forecast errors of a simple autoregression of real GDP. While this approach yields a cyclical...

Die deutsche Wirtschaft befindet sich an der Schwelle zur Rezession. Im dritten Quartal wird das Bruttoinlandsprodukt wohl noch einmal zurückgehen. Damit befände sich Deutschland formal in einer technischen Rezession. Freilich stellt die Abschwächung, die bereits im Jahr 2018 einsetzte,...

The German economy is at the brink of a recession. Gross domestic product is likely to decline again in the third quarter. Germany would thus formally be in a technical recession. However, the slowdown that began in 2018 has so far been a normalization of the previous boom period. At present,...

This paper illustrates the importance of consistency between the empirical measurement and the concept of variables in macroeconomic models. Since standard New Keynesian models do not account for demographic trends and sectoral shifts, I propose adjusting hours per capita used to estimate such...