Economics

This course will focus on the environment of firms with particular emphasis on economic variables such as GNP, inflation, interest rates, exchange rates and international trade. The course is divided into five parts: The first presents the basic tools of macroeconomic management by focusing on...

We identify a common misconception that expected future changes in short-term interest rates predict corresponding future changes in long-term interest rates. People forecast similar shapes for the paths of short and long rates over the next four quarters. This is a mistake because long rates...

In this paper, the author empirically assesses the predictive power of short-term interest rates and term spreads for future inflation in Germany. Based on a multivariate term structure framework, a vector error forecasting equation for inflation forecasts of up to two years is constructed. The...

This paper studies the predictability of stock returns using monthly data on eight markets over the period 1876-1913. In contrast to much of the existing literature I find broad predictability across stock markets. Market interest rates and seasonal dummies generally have predictive power, and...

The thesis deals with usury and illegal lenders both on the domestic scene and abroad. The usury itself is defined by its characteristics, by adjudication and by historical connotations. The historical definition begins in Mesopotamia and ancient Rome, basically since the emergence of money. The...

When I read about monetary policy, I have a rule of thumb. Every time I see the phrase interest rate, I replace it with the term wage rate. Then I ask myself whether the discussion still makes sense. Often, it does not. The reason I make this substitution is that in conceptual terms, the...

In July 2022, the ECB started to gradually increase the key interest rate in order to bring the increased inflation back into the target corridor. An increase in the cost of capital for countries and companies could be observed much earlier. This increase of cost was more significantly caused by...

The ability of monetary policy to influence the term structure of interest rates and the macroeconomy depends on the extent to which financial market participants prefer to hold bonds of different maturities. We microfound such preferred-habitat demand in a fully-specified dynamic stochastic...