This paper contains a brief description of the methodological approach to economic fluctuations developed by Arthur F. Burns and Wesley C. Mitchell at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Applying this methodology to growth cycles of the West German economy gives rise to a large number of...

In this paper I test the unit root hypothesis for U.S. log GNP using the information available in income distribution data. The percentile data of an income distribution are shown to follow the same autoregressive pattern as does mean income. Under the null hypothesis of a unit root log GNP is...

On several occasions, the 1980s witnessed non-Keynesian effects of fiscal contractions. Most notably, cuts in government spending in Ireland, Denmark and Germany are known to have coincided with increases in private consumption spending. Self-fulfilling expectations about the effects of...

A sovereign debt crisis develops when lenders doubt that outstanding nominal debt is backed by the present value of future primary budget surpluses. The European Stability Mechanism hopes to prevent default by promoting structural adjustments which improve primary budget surpluses. The author...

Standard trade theory claims that free trade is welfare-enhancing. We show that this is not the case if at least one sector of the economy is a Cournot oligopoly. In a simple small open economy with one oligopolistic and one competitive sector, welfare is an inverted U-shaped function of...

Die Real-Business-Cycle-Theorie hat ihren Ursprung in zwei vor rund 20 Jahren erschienenen Artikeln von Kydland und Prescott (1982) sowie Long und Plosser (1983). Diese Artikel wirkten zur Zeit ihres Erscheinens revolutionär, denn sowohl inhaltlich als auch methodisch lagen sie weit abseits des...

Durch die globale Finanz- und Wirtschaftskrise geraten Europas Banken immer mehr unter Druck. So hat die desolate Verfassung der Staatsfinanzen der südeuropäischen Länder nach Ansicht von Stephan Paul und Christian Farruggio, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, die Krise in den Bankensektor...

We study the Beaudry and Portier (2006)-hypothesis of delayed-technology diffusion and news-driven business cycles. For German data on TFP and stock prices we find qualitatively similar empirical evidence. Quantitatively, however, an impulse response analysis suggests that a substantial part of...