We study the dynamics of capital accumulation, income inequality, capital concentration, and voting up to 1914. Based on new panel data for Prussian regions, we re-evaluate the famous Revisionism Debate between orthodox Marxists and their critics. We show that changes in capital accumulation led to a rise in the capital share and income inequality, as predicted by orthodox Marxists. But against their ...
Entrepreneurs tend to be risk tolerant but is higher risk tolerance always better? In a sample of about 2100 small businesses, we find an inverted U-shaped relation between risk tolerance and profitability. This relationship holds in a simple bilateral regression, and even after controlling for a large set of individual and business characteristics. Apparently, one major transmission goes from risk ...
This paper examines how news coverage of the European Central Bank (ECB) affects consumer inflation expectations in the four largest euro area countries. Utilizing a unique dataset of multilingual European news articles, we measure the impact of ECB-related inflation news on inflation expectations. Our results indicate that German and Italian consumers are more attentive to this news, whereas in Spain ...
Real construction volume is expected to decline for the fifth year in a row: A decline of nearly four percent is expected for 2024 and it should fall by almost one percent in 2025. However, the construction industry may manage to reverse the trend in 2026, when real construction volume is projected to grow by two percent. However, this should not obscure the fact that the declines over the past years ...
The Joint Economic Forecast Project Group forecasts a 0.1% decline in Germany's gross domestic product in 2024. Looking further ahead, the institutes expect a weak recovery with growth of 0.8% (2025) and 1.3% (2026). Compared to the spring forecast, this represents a downward revision of 0.2 (2024) and 0.6 (2025) percentage points. “In addition to the economic downturn, the German economy is also being ...
According to Germany’s five leading economic research institutes, the country’s economy shows cyclical and structural weaknesses. In their spring report, they revised their GDP forecast for the current year significantly downward to 0.1 percent. In the recent fall report, the figure was still 1.3 percent. Expectations for the coming year are almost unchanged at 1.4 percent (previously 1.5 percent). ...