This paper examines the role of currency and banking in the German financial crisis of 1931 for both Germany and the U.S. We specify a structural dynamic factor model to identify financial and monetary factors separately for each of the two economies. We find that monetary transmission through...

This paper reexamines U.S. business cycle volatility since 1867. We employ dynamic factor analysis as an alternative to reconstructed national accounts. We find a remarkable volatility increase across World War I, which is reversed after World War II. While we can generate evidence of postwar...

Main description: Warum brach über Deutschland nach der vielversprechenden Stabilisierung der Mark 1923/24 und dem anschließenden Aufschwung eine Krise von ungekanntem Ausmaß herein? Welche Faktoren verbanden sich zu dieser Katastrophe? Wäre sie zu verhindern gewesen? Hätte die...

This paper analyzes the effects of macroeconomic shocks on prices and output at different levels of aggregation using a bottom up approach. We show how to generate firm level impulse responses by incorporating experimental settings into surveys and by exposing firm executives to treatment...

In the process of economic development economies grow through various regimes, each characterized by different demographic-economic interactions. The changes in these interactions are key elements in different explanations of the escape from Malthusian stagnation. We employ time-varying vector...