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This paper tests for business cycle symmetry in G7 countries during the post-World War II period using a number of tests, each reflecting alternative definitions of business cycle asymmetry. The tests are applied to monthly coincident economic indicators of business cycles. This found that business cycles in the US are characterized by both longitudinal (deepness) and transversal (steepness and sharpness) asymmetries: further, it is found that asymmetric transition probabilties and time irreversibility are due to nonlinearities. On the contrary, business cycles in Germany exhibits a symmetric behaviour. Between these extremes are the other countries, for which at least one of the tests here considered rejects the null of cyclical symmetry. Particularly, business cycle is characterized by deepness and sharpness in Canada, asymmetry in persistence in France and Japan, and asymmetric transition probabilities in France and United Kingdom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports results of an empirical study on the effectiveness of labour market policy. Data from Austria, France, Germany, Great Britain, Sweden and the United States are used to apply a simultaneous equation model with wages and employment being the endogenous variables. In order to explain employment, the amount of unemployment benefits per unemployed (passive labour market policy) and payment for wage subsidies and training per employed and unemployed person (active labour market policy) are used in addition to real wages and output. Wages and output have their expected impact on total employment. It turns out that passive labour market policy has a negative, and active labour market measures a positive, effect on the number of persons employed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the dominant economic themes of the 1980s was the USA's persistent current account deficit. This deficit had, of course, its counterpart in a capital account surplus -borrowing from the rest of the world. Observers, whether academic economists, market operators or press commentators, repeatedly questioned whether the situation could continue. Would world investors (in the financial sense) grow weary, or at least wary, of putting their funds into US securities, with the result that the dollar would collapse in the foreign exchange markets and/or US interest rates would have to rise to exorbitant levels to persuade the world to keep buying US paper?
The current account deficits have continued but by the time of writing, at least, the catastrophe has not happened. The dollar has moved down at times but also up at times, so that exchange rates against other currencies cannot be said to have collapsed. Interest rates, meanwhile, do not show a risk premium which is visible, as it were, to the naked eye.
However, that is not necessarily to say that no risk premium exists. This paper reports an attempt to determine whether there is such a risk premium on US hands and also for the sake of comparison, on those of the UK, France and Germany (Federal Republic). For reasons which will be made clear below, we concentrate on long-term bonds.
The results suggest that, a risk premium related to current account deficits exists for the USA, but there appears to be no evidence of a risk premium for the other countries. A suggestion is offered as to why this may be so.
The results can be seen in terms of the ultra-familiar, textbook IS-LM-BP model. The implication of a risk premium on current account deficits is that the BP curve is upward-sloping. In the absence of such a premium, it is flat.
The paper is organized as follows: Section II summarizes the development of the relevant theory; Section III explains the method of investigation and... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relation of output to workers and hours is a frequently investigated topic. The points addressed are the development of wages over the business cycle or the adjustment of the workweek and employment if output is fluctuating. Some papers concerned with wages take supply factors into account,[1] whereas other authors only consider the demand for labour.[2] This paper is of the second kind, disregarding labour supply or wage effects it is only looking at the effects of current or expected production and orders regarding the adjustment of labour.
In this paper the question of how expected output determines the demand for hours of work and employment is investigated more closely. An adjustment model for employment and hours per worker is discussed. This model leads to conclusions which modify the hypotheses of Topel (1982) and Rossana (1985). One feature of this model is the consideration of adjustment costs of recruitment and overtime premiums. The costs associated with the worker are not constant over time. Usually in the beginning of an employment relationship fixed costs arise. These fixed costs are caused by training expenditures and foregone output in the period when workers are settling into their new jobs. Other fixed costs are expenditures for search and screening by the employer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extent of international capital mobility is assessed in a time series context. The possibility that the current account balance of different OECD countries contains a unit root is explored. It is shown that if the ratio of the current account balance to GDP is found to be integrated of the order of one, the country is likely to be part of the world capital market. The results for the whole period 1950-1988 indicate that the current account balance of at least Germany, Japan and the United States contains a unit root. Considering the subperiods before and after 1972 it is shown that international capital mobility increased after the breakdown of the Bretton Woods System. This paper develops a new approach to testing whether a country is linked to the international capital market. We show that if a country's current account balance expressed as a ratio to GDP contains a unit root, then there is no long-run stable relationship between its saving and investment rates and the country is linked to the international capital market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study empirically examines the sources of fluctuations in hours worked in Canada, Germany, Japan and the U.S. It is particularly motivated by Galí's (1999) VAR study, which demonstrates that a positive technology shock reduces hours worked, at least in the short run. However, in the present study, a technology shock is identified without recourse to Galí's long-run restriction, which has been subject to active controversy. Furthermore, this study uncovers other important sources of fluctuations in hours worked to reflect the concern, raised by numerous studies, that technology shocks leave most variations in hours worked unexplained. Specifically, there are six shocks underlying our model, and they are identified using a set of sign restrictions. The empirical results confirm that in all four countries, a positive technology shock significantly reduces hours worked. This technology shock, along with labor supply and demand shocks, accounts for most of the short-term variations in hours worked. As the forecasting horizon increases, technology and demand shocks become less important, whereas labor supply shocks contribute to explaining the bulk of long-run variations in hours worked. Finally, the empirical relevance of Galí's longrun identification restriction is tested and the results are related to those obtained using the sign restriction model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we show the interrelation of the purchasing power parity and the uncovered interest rate parity between the US and Germany for the recent period running from 1999:01 to 2014:04. This study extends the literature by testing both hypotheses simultaneously in a multivariate ECM. This has the advantage that interactions between capital and goods markets can be considered simultaneously. Our finding of two long-run relationships between the variables shows that a disequilibrium in one of the two markets leads to a disequilibrium in the other. While analysing the reaction to cumulative shocks, we show that US variables have a greater impact on German variables than vice versa. Therefore, the rising importance of the euro and the increased integration of the European Union in the recent decade have not changed this relation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We analyse nonstationary time series that do not only trend together in the long run, but restore the equilibrium immediately in the period following a deviation. While this represents a common serial correlation feature, the framework is extended to codependence, allowing for delayed adjustment. We show which restrictions are implied for the Moving Average (MA) and Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) representations and put forward a Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) test. In addition, for cases where the constraints can be uniquely imposed on a VECM a likelihood ratio test is proposed. We apply the concept to US and European interest rate data, examining the capability of the Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) and European Central Bank (ECB) to control overnight money market rates. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Using the statistical technique of fuzzy clustering, regimes of inflation and unemployment are explored for the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany between 1871 and 2009. We identify for each country three distinct regimes in inflation/unemployment space. Similarities exist across countries in both the regimes and the timings of the transitions between regimes. However, the typical rates of inflation and unemployment experienced in the regimes are substantially different. Further, even within a given regime, the results from the cluster analysis reveal persistent fluctuations in the degree of attachment to that regime of inflation/unemployment observations over time. The economic implications of this are that, first, the inflation/unemployment relationship or Phillips curve experiences from time to time major shifts. Second, that it is also inherently unstable even in the short run. It is likely that the factors which govern the inflation/unemployment trade-off are so multi-dimensional that it is hard to identify periods of short-run Phillips curves which can be assigned to particular historical periods with any degree of accuracy or predictability. The analysis shows that reliance on a trade-off between inflation and unemployment for policy purposes is misplaced even in the short run. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents further evidence on the hypothesis of news driven business cycles. I use a structural Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) approach to identify news shocks as in Beaudry and Lucke (BL, 2010). I document three facts: first, news shocks identified by BL are Granger causal for US patent data; second, BL's analysis applied to German macro data reveals very similar patterns: activity is largely driven by news, and news shocks explain a sizable and increasing share of Total Factor Productivity (TFP) variance at long horizons; and third, German news shocks are Granger causal for German patent data and the pattern is, again, very similar to the US. Since patent data in the US and Germany are almost uncorrelated, the similarity is striking and strongly suggests a technology interpretation of news shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent empirical studies of the determinants of multinational activity across countries have found overwhelming support for a horizontal rather than a vertical model of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). The majority of these studies use data either originating in or targeted at the US. This article presents evidence from a dataset of German inward and outward FDI. The dataset is similar in scope to the widely used US Bureau of Economic Analysis data, making the results comparable to those from previous studies. In addition, a new empirical specification is employed that avoids some of the problems that have plagued these studies. The results provide little indication of vertical multinationals. FDI happens largely between similarly endowed countries. Multinational firms originate in skilled-labour abundant countries, although the evidence is mixed on whether they are also small. A novel result is that German firms invest disproportionately in other European countries, while the reverse is not true. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores which of two hypotheses, market segmentation or investor sentiment, determines the behaviour of Closed-End Country Funds (CECFs) with the inclusion of risk factors. The risk factors are proxied volatility, as estimated with a Bivariate Markov-switching Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (BSWARCH) model, which simultaneously includes foreign and US markets. Our findings are as follows. On average, a positive response is larger than a negative response in terms of absolute value. And, the market segmentation hypothesis with risk factors gains support in Mexico, where CECF returns are related to a market with low volatility but not to one with high volatility. Third, the investor sentiment hypothesis, which argues that CECF returns are not responsive to foreign markets, is weakly supported in Brazil, the Philippines, Indonesia and, to a lesser degree, in Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uncovered Interest Rate Parity (UIP) states that bonds in different denomination should produce the same returns if the maturities of the bonds are the same. Given this, if a foreign bond produces a lower holding period return than a home bond of the same maturity, for their remaining lives the same foreign bond ought to produce a return higher than the home bond. A test is designed according to this relationship. With 1 to 6 year interest rate data of U.S., Britain and Germany from 1979 to 2005, our test shows that this relationship is more reliable for 6-year interest rates than the shorter rates in general. This result lends support to the long-run UIP. A trading strategy is developed by utilizing this idea. We show that positive returns can be achieved by the strategy for bonds of longer horizons. This result also serves as indirect evidence of the long-run UIP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work examines the behaviour of the input and output measures of the R&D process in the United States, Germany, France and the United Kingdom, in the second half of the 20th century. The researcher and idea stock series can be construed as stationary fluctuations around a trend function, with a main breakpoint at the end of the 1960s. All the countries exhibit slower growth after their last breaks that during the decades preceding its first breaks. In this connection, the United States and Germany appear to represent the end points in the range of incidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study affiliations for the countries of the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) with Germany and the USA, using various business cycle measures derived from quarterly real GDP. These measures are Hodrick-Prescott and Baxter-King filtered series and annual growth rates. By using rolling contemporaneous and maximum (over a short lead/lag interval) correlations, we document increasing correlations of EMU countries with Germany, with these typically being largest during the 1990s. We also document a strong leading role for the USA in relation to these countries in the period since 1993, thereby correcting the fallacy that the European business cycle was disjointed from the USA for most of the 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given that instructional student ratings measure differences in pedagogical productivity, this study examines whether perceived attractiveness of German university teachers impact on these differences. Apart from some refinements and adjustments to idiosyncracies of the German system of higher learning, the quantitative analysis widely follows the strategy of the seminal work by Hamermesh and Parker (2005), based on US data. In comparison to findings for the USA, perceived attractiveness of teachers is found to have, if at all, only a weakly significant and quantitatively less important impact on the evaluation outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study concentrates on four computerized political markets in Germany between 1990 and 1998. While this new method for the prediction of election events worked quite well in the USA it did not perform as well in Germany. Searching for the causes of this distinction it is shown that, in contrast to the findings of Forsythe et al. (1992), (i) extraordinary profits were achieved less by people who took advantage of other people's anomalies than by those people who acquired an advantage from the existence of asymmetric information, (ii) the marginal trader hypothesis does not hold when applied to German markets, and that (iii) traders relied on public opinion polls. It is argued that these distinctions are caused by the differences in the German and the US voting systems. Additionally, it is shown that to a certain extent (iv) election markets were able to predict the contemporary mood of the electorate without the help of public opinion polls, (v) first of all the informed traders used public opinion polls as a source of information, and (vi) prices themselves became a source of information on which expectations were based. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses the patent trends and volatilities for the top 12 foreign patenting countries in the US market from 1975 to 1997. Japan is ranked first in terms of foreign patents registered in the USA, followed by Germany. Patent registrations from each of these countries have increased steadily over time, but at different rates. Using monthly time series data for 1975-1997, the time-varying volatility of Australian, Japanese and German patents registered in the USA is examined in detail. The asymmetric AR(1)-GJR(1,1) model is found to be suitable for Australia and Japan, while the best fitting model for Germany is the symmetric AR(1)-GARCH(1,1) model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce and summarize the results of nine empirical studies that make up this special issue on agricultural economics. The research includes studies applied to the US, Bangladesh, Northern Ireland, Germany, Poland, Taiwan, Tunisia and Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]