Macroeconomics Department Publications

Dispersed Communication by Central Bank Committees and the Predictability of Monetary Policy Decisions

The paper asks whether members of central bank decision-making committees should communicate with the public in a collegial manner, by conveying the consensus or majority view of the committee, or in an individualistic way, by providing the diversity of views among the committee members. It finds that more active as well as more consistent communication by committee members improves the predictability ...

Sovereign Risk Premiums in the European Government Bond Market

This paper provides a study of bond yield differentials among EU government bonds on the basis of a unique data set of issue spreads in the US and DM (Euro) bond market between 1993 and 2009. Interest differentials between bonds issued by EU countries and Germany or the USA contain risk premiums which increase with fiscal imbalances and depend negatively on the issuer's relative bond market size. The ...

Assessing the Real-Time Informational Content of Macroeconomic Data Releases for Now-/Forecasting GDP: Evidence for Switzerland

This study utilizes the dynamic factor model of Giannone et al. (2008) in order to make now-/ forecasts of GDP quarter-on-quarter growth rate in Switzerland. It also assesses the informational content of macroeconomic data releases for forecasting of the Swiss GDP. We find that the factor model offers a substantial improvement in forecast accuracy of GDP growth rate compared to a benchmark naive constant-growth ...

Measuring Regional Inequality by Internet Car Price Advertisements: Evidence for Germany

We suggest to use car sale prices from internet advertisements for measuring economic inequality between and within German regions. Our estimates of regional income levels and Gini indices based on advertisements are highly positively correlated with the official figures.

Sovereign Bond Yield Spreads: A Time-Varying Coefficient Approach

We study the determinants of sovereign bond yield spreads across 10 EMU countries between Q1/1999 and Q1/2010. We apply a semiparametric time-varying coefficient model to identify, to what extent an observed change in the yield spread is due to a shift in macroeconomic fundamentals or due to altering risk pricing. We find that at the beginning of EMU, the government debt level and the general investors' ...

The Influence of Collusion on Price Changes: New Evidence from Major Cartel Cases

In this article, we compare the distribution of price changes between collusive and non-collusive periods for 11 major cartels. Based on the theoretical and empirical results from previous research, we discuss the four moments with respect to price changes (mean, variance, skewness and kurtosis). However, none of the above descriptive statistics can be considered as a robust test allowing a differentiation ...

The Russian Regional Convergence Process: Where Is It Leading

This paper investigates income convergence among Russian regions between 1998 and 2006. It makes two major contributions to the literature on regional convergence in Russia. First, it identifies spatial regimes using the exploratory spatial data analysis. Second, it examines the impact of spatial effects on the convergence process. Our results show that the overall speed of regional convergence in ...

The Long Run Relationship between Private Consumption and Wealth: Common and Idiosyncratic Effects

We investigate the long run relationship between private consumption, disposable income and wealth approximated by equity and house price indices for a panel of 15 industrialized countries. Consumption, income and wealth are cointegrated in their common components. The impact of house prices exceeds the effect arising from equity wealth. The long run vector is broadly in line with the life cycle permanent ...

Die Wirkung der EZB-Geldpolitik hängt auch von der Fiskalpolitik der Euroländer ab: Interview

Zinserhöhungen der EZB wirken in Euroländern mit restriktiver Fiskalpolitik härter

Der Iran-Krieg hat die Energiepreise und dadurch die Inflation im Euroraum erneut in die Höhe getrieben. Die Europäische Zentralbank (EZB) hat darauf mit bisher zwei Zinserhöhungsschritten reagiert, weitere könnten folgen. Dabei gerät leicht aus dem Blick, dass höhere Zinsen nicht nur Unternehmen und private Haushalte, sondern auch die Staatshaushalte belasten: Die Zinsausgaben steigen. Zudem drückt ...