Heinemann, Friedrich
Strategic Lessons from the Maastricht Criteria
Maier, Philipp
Pressure on the Bundesbank?
Nautz, Dieter
Zur empirischen Relevanz des Monetären Modells für die Erklärung des DM/ Dollar-Wechselkurses
Arnold, Lutz
Kreditrationierung, Arbeitslosigkeit und Konjunkturfluktuationen
Dankenbring, Henning
Volatility Estimates of the Short-Term Interest Rate with an Application to German Data
Steinle, Claus and Ahlers, Friedel and Rutter, Christoph
Zukunftsforschung und Strategieentwicklung in Finanzdienstleistungsunternehmungen: Konzept, empirisches Schlaglicht und Gestaltungsoptionen
Simmert, Diethard B. and Welteke, Ernst (Hrsg.)
Die Europäische Zentralbank. Europäische Geldpolitik im Spannungsfeld zwischen Wirtschaft und Politik (Philip M. V. Hallensleben)
Hartmann, Philipp
Currency Competition and Foreign Exchange Markets - The Dollar, the Yen and the Euro (Beate Reszat)
Heinemann, Friedrich
"Strategic Lessons from the Maastricht Criteria"
The fiscal criteria of the Maastricht Treaty have been heavily criticized in the economic analysis. Some of this criticism might be based on a too narrow economic approach that neglects the strategic function of the criteria. This study sheds light on this neglected dimension and proposes to understand the criteria in the context of bargaining theory as boundaries. According to bargaining theory is boundary is created in order to change bargaining equilibria. It is argued that this was probably the main purpose of the criteria: By making the EMU entry conditional on fiscal improvement it was possible to change fiscal policy equilibria. In a simple negotiation model of the relationship between the EU council and the median voter of the EU member country the conditions for the strategic effectiveness of this kind of conditionality are demonstrated. The empirical findings support the theoretical predictions by showing that the criteria were particularly effective in countries with a high rate of Euro acceptance. This leads to the expectation that consolidation will slow down in these countries in the years following EMU's start. (JEL H 87, C 78, D 72)
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Maier, Philipp
"Pressure on the Bundesbank?"
We investigate whether the German central bank responds to political pressure. We focus on two main points: The rhetoric of the Bundesbank, characterized by the, Bundesbank monetary policy index', and the actual or effective Bundesbank policy, which is measured by the day-to--day interest rate. Besides testing for the political business cycle we also estimate various conflict models. We find that the announced Bundesbank policy responds to political pressure before elections since the rhetoric shows a clear electoral pattern. However, this does not translate into the effective Bundesbank policy, since the day-to-day rate shows no sign
political influence at all. This result suggests that the Bundesbank pretends relatively expansive monetary policy before elections in its rhetoric to calm down
politicians, but in the mean time shields the effective monetary policy from political pressure. (JEL E 52, E 58)
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Nautz, Dieter
"The Empirical Relevance of the Monetary Model for the Deutschmark/Dollar Exchange rate"
This paper analyses the empirical relevance of the monetary model for explaining the Deutschmark/dollar exchange rate. It is shown that the reduced form approach customary in the recent empirical literature results in unplausible parameter restrictions and in inefficient estimates of the underlying money demand functions. The monetary model allows good adjustment to the exchange-rate development only when the exchange rate equation is estimated in its structural form. Analysing the structural equations of the monetary model facilities the economic interpretation of the exchange-rate equation and reduces the danger of statistical artefacts.
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Arnold, Lutz
"Credit Rationing, Unemployment and Business Fluctuations"
Greenwald and Stiglitz propose viewing business cycles as caused by the interplay of imperfections in the markets for capital and labor: shocks to firms' equity affect labor demands since equity is a hedge against bankruptcy and firms are bankruptcy-averse; because of labor market imperfections, fluctuations in labor demand translate into fluctuations in unemployment and production. In the present paper the assumption that firms are bankruptcy-averse is replaced with the more appealing assumption that banks are bankruptcy-averse and ration credit to firms. It turns out that, in the specific framework considered with aggregate disturbances only, the two alternative assumptions are equivalent: equilibrium quantities and prices are the same under either specification. (An English version of this paper is available from the author upon request.)
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Dankenbring, Henning
"Volatility Estimates of the Short-Term Interest rate with an Application to German Data"
This paper proposes a procedure for testing alternative specifications of the short-term interest rate's dynamics which takes into account the non-stationarity of the interest rate process for certain restrictions, i. e. the traditional test statistic has a non-standard distribution. Moreover, we do not take the specification of the mean equation is given by the theory but rather base the choice of lag structure on a robust Lagrange Multiplier test. In contrast to U.S. data we find that the volatility depends either on the interest rate level or on information shocks but not on both. Finally, we propose to describe the short-term interest rate's dynamics by means of an AR(1) model with stochastic volatility. (JEL C 2, E 4, G 1)
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Steinle, Claus and Ahlers, Friedel and Rutter, Christoph
"Future-Oriented Research and Strategy Development by Financial Services-Providing Companies: Concept, Empirical Highlights and Shaping Options"
This contribution represents a general overview of the complex of future-oriented research in the financial services sector. Starting from an empirical enquiry with financial institutions (Germany, Austria, Switzerland), it discusses concepts and shaping options especially for the organisational integration of future-oriented financial services research institutions. The intention is to show how the process of strategy development can give rise to meaningful implications and inducements by way of future-oriented research activities. In view of its deliberate practice-orientation, this contribution furnishes topical information on the present state of development of options for shaping in-house future-oriented research in the financial services industry, i. e. a sub-area largely still neglected by modern academic literature.
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