This paper uses an extended version of 'FiMod - A DSGE Model for Fiscal Policy Simulations' (Stähler and Thomas, 2011) with endogenous job destruction decisions by private firms to analyze the effects of several currently discussed labor market reforms on the Spanish economy. The main focus is...

We study how credit supply shocks in the US, the euro area and Japan are transmitted to other economies. We use the recently-developed GVAR approach to model financial variables jointly with macroeconomic variables in 33 countries for the period 1983-2009. We experiment with inter-country links...

As, in Europe, many institutional reforms have been undertaken to establish an economic union, it can be expected that the relevance of borders has decreased over time. For the EU 15, we investigate the expected integration process of the market for corporate control - an illustrative market for...

Germans are still very fond of using cash. Of all direct payment transactions, cash accounts for an astounding 82% in terms of number, and for 58% in terms of value. With a new and unique dataset that combines transaction information with survey data on payment behaviour of German consumers, we...

A low interest rate environment can pose a key risk to the life insurance sector. A deteriorating return on investment holdings jeopardizes the guaranteed return on life insurance contracts. In this paper, we examine the effect of low interest rates on German life insurers by applying various...

Critics claim that capital requirements can exacerbate credit cycles by restricting lending in an economic downturn. The introduction of Basel 2, in particular, has led to concerns that risksensitive capital charges are highly correlated with the business cycle. The Basel Committee is...

This study examines the promise of reducing expected resolution costs of financial institutions through either voluntary or mandated addition of contingently convertible debt securities to their long-term financing mix. I model the stochastic process by which an initially very well capitalized...