This paper studies the business cycle in Germany using the HP-filter (Hodrick/Prescott (1997)) to isolate the cyclical component. A two-country International Business Cycle model in line with Baxter/Crucini (1995) is built to explain these facts. The combination of GHH-preferences with taste...

This paper examines the implications of segmented assets markets for the real and nominal effects of monetary policy. I develop a model, in which varieties of consumption bundles are purchased sequentially. Newly injected money thus disseminates slowly through the economy via second-round...

We investigate how firms' market power affects the price level. In our small macro-model we show, that firms - in addition to hypothesised structural mark-up pricing power - may take advantage of favourable business cycle fluctuations. The paper provides empirical evidence for both these...

Housing crises usually go hand in hand with a long lasting recession and a considerable loss in output. We first re-examine the effects of a housing crises on the business cycle based on historical crises. Then we estimate the international spill-over-effects if several huge industrial countries...

This paper is an exercise in dating the Euro area business cycle on a monthly basis. Using a quite flexible interpolation routine. we construct several monthly series of Euro area GDP, and then apply the Bry-Boschan (1971) procedure. To account for the asymmetry in growth regimes and duration...

Identifying business cycle stylised facts is essential as these often form the basis for the construction and validation of theoretical business cycle models. Furthermore, understanding the cyclical patterns in economic activity, and their causes, is important to the decisions of both...

This paper presents a simple, analytically solvable Chamberlinian agglomeration model. As in the canonical core-periphery (CP) model, two agglomerative forces are at work. However, the present model exhibits a 'pitchfork bifurcation' rather than the 'tomahawk bifurcation' of the CP model.

This paper examines whether exporting activity matters for firm?s price cost margins. The recent literature on exporting and productivity shows that exporters on average are more efficient than nonexporters. If that is the case we may also expect them to have different mark-ups. We investigate...

Estimating market power is often complicated by a lack of reliable marginal cost data. Instead, policy-makers often rely on summary statistics of the market, thought to be correlated with price cost margins? such as concentration ratios or the HHI. In many industries, these summary statistics...