Monetary union in Germany as part of the reunification process required a conversion rate between the Deutschmark and the Mark, the currencies of West and East Germany respectively. Flows (in particular wages and pensions) were converted at a rate of 1:1, whilst there were different conversion...

Are central banks able to isolate their domestic economy by offsetting the effects of foreign capital flows? We provide an answer for the First Age of Globalization based on an exceptionally detailed and standardized database of monthly balance sheets of all central banks in the world (i.e. 21)...

We add a historical and regional dimension to the debate on the Greek debt crisis. Analysing the 1841-1939 exchange-rate experience of Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia/Yugoslavia, we find surprising parallels to the present: repeated cycles of entry to and exit from gold, government debt...

This paper surveys the causes and consequences of late 19th century globalization, as well as the anti-globalization backlash of that period.

Relying on dynamic factor business cycle indices for five South-East European countries (Austria(-Hungary), Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Serbia/Yugoslavia), we document steadily increasing synchronisation as part of a pan-European business cycle before 1913 and the emergence of a regional business...

We challenge the view that Centrally Planned Economies functioned well until the early 1970s, delivering high economic growth and better living standards. Judged by real wages as the most widely used historical living standard indicator, only in the 1970s did Bulgarian living standards surpass...