This paper discusses the reasons for the dismal labor market performance of Germany over the last three decades along with potential remedies. It argues that labor market rigidities along with a generous welfare state in conjunction with certain changes in the economic environment are important...

Previous assessments of nominal exchange rate determination have focused upon a narrow set of models typically of the 1970 s vintage, including monetary and portfolio balance models. In this paper we re-assess the in-sample fit and out-of-sample prediction of a wider set of models that have been...

Survey data from the United States, West Germany and East Germany are analyzed to compare individual attitudes towards political redistribution in each country. In West Germany the homo oeconomicus effect , the social rivalry effect and the public values effect simultaneously retain an...

The East Asian miracle was real. Prior to the 1997 economic and currency crises, Asian NICs Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan achieved remarkable annual GDP growth. In these countries the overall economic performance was significantly determined by the industrial development triggered by...

This note provides evidence for the relationship between income comparisons and subjective well-being (SWB), using novel German data on self-reported comparison intensity and perceived relative income for seven reference groups. We find negative correlations between comparison intensity and SWB...

The view that high unemployment in West Germany and other European countries is caused by a path dependence effect - or hysteresis effect - is quite popular among economists. However, because of an identification problem, much of the empirical evidence for this hypothesis is not fu lly...

The concept of the employment threshold plays an important role in the public discussion of unemployment. The employment threshol d is defined as that growth rate of output which is necessary to keep employment constant despite the continuous rise in labour productivity. It is related to the...

Based on explicit present value calculations, the paper criticizes the view that the PAYGO system wastes economic resources. In present value terms, there is nothi ng to be gained from a transition to a funded system even though the latter offers a permanently higher rate of return. The sum of...