The paper analyses the reasons for Japan's persistently low inflation since the bursting of the Japanese bubble economy (low inflation conundrum). It is shown that Japan experienced a structural break from a high-growth period with relatively high inflation to a low-growth period with...

This paper introduces a Business Cycle Indicator to compile a transparent and reliable chronology of past business cycle turning points for Germany. The Indicator is derived applying the statistical method of Principal Component Analysis, based on information from 20 economic time series. In...

Die Struktur des Monetarismus (II) In dem Aufsatz wird die Erörterung des Monetarismus fortgesetzt", in dem sechs Regeln für eine monetaristische Politik aufgegriffen werden: (1) Der Gebrauch der Mindestreserven als ein Indikator für die Geldpolitik. (2) Die Ausrichtung der Geldpolitik auf...

In dem 1968 erschienenen Film von Alexander Kluge ('Die Artisten in der Zirkuskuppel: ratlos'), der mich zu dem Titel für die heutige Vorlesung inspiriert hat, geht es um die Verwirklichung einer noch nie da gewesenen Zirkusnummer gegen alle Widrigkeiten. Als das Projekt schließlich machbar...

Economists sometimes interpret the failure of a significance test to disconfirm a hypothesis as evidence that this hypothesis is valid. Six examples of this are cited from recent journals. But this is a misinterpretation of what significance tests show. While in general it is correct that every...

The standard loss function counts both positive and negative deviations from the output and inflation targets as losses. But if the sample period is long enough, then output growth in excess of the target, and often also inflation rates that are below target, should be counted as gains instead...

The standard loss function gives the same weight to positive and negative deviations from the output and inflation targets. This short note criticizes this symmetry assumption. If the period covered is long enough output growth in excess of the target, and often also inflation rates that are...

When a significance test fails to disconfirm a hypothesis economist often interpret this as evidence that this hypothesis is valid. Six such examples are cited from recent journals. But this is a misinterpretation of what significance tests show. Presumably this misinterpretation is founded on...

How justified is the charge that ideology strongly influences the allegedly objective opinions of economists? An analysis of a new survey of AEA members and of surveys by Fuchs et al of labor economists and public economists shows that value judgments and judgments about the government''s...

Close to half the California school districts let teachers choose whether to receive their salaries ten monthly payments or in twelve. Fisherine intertemporal maximization implies that they should choose ten payments and earn interest on their savings for their summer. But about half choose...