Exploiting the heteroskedasticity of the changes in short-term and long-term interest rates and exchange rates around the FOMC announcement, we identify three structural monetary policy shocks. We eliminate the predictable part of the shocks and study their effects on financial variables and macro variables. The first shock resembles a conventional monetary policy shock, and the second resembles an unconventional monetary shock. The third shock leads to an increase in interest rates, stock prices, industrial production, consumer prices, and commodity prices. At the same time, the excess bond premium and uncertainty decrease, and the U.S. dollar depreciates. Therefore, this third shock combines all the characteristics of a central bank information shock.

We show an equivalence result in the representative-agent New-Keynesian model after demand, wage-markup and correlated price-markup and TFP shocks: assuming sticky prices and flexible wages yields identical allocations for GDP, consumption, labor, inflation and interest rates to the opposite case—flexible prices and sticky wages. This equivalence arises with identical price and wage Phillips-curve slopes and generalizes to any slopes' pair whose sum and product are identical. Equilibrium profits and wages are, however, substantially different; equivalence breaks when these factor-distributional implications matter for aggregate allocations, e.g. in New-Keynesian models with heterogeneous agents, endogenous firm entry, and non-constant returns to scale.

We study the procurement patterns of non-listed firms and examine how these often-overlooked, yet pivotal players in global supply chains adjust their sourcing when they anticipate accountability for externalities beyond their organizational boundaries. Using granular customs data and a surprise information release about the German Supply Chain Due Diligence Act, product-level regressions reveal that importing firms are 3.5 percentage points less likely to source a product from countries where the relevant production sector exhibits elevated ESG-related risks, suggesting that firms tend to cut ties with higher-risk suppliers. The effects are concentrated among firms with well-diversified supplier networks for a product and higher profitability, suggesting they have the necessary flexibility to respond quickly to anticipated regulatory pressure. Our findings suggest that mandates requiring firms to incorporate broad sustainability considerations into their operational decisions may have limits, particularly for non-listed firms.

We study how idiosyncratic income risk shapes the aggregate and distributional effects of labor and capital income taxation in dynamic general equilibrium models. To this end, we compare a heterogeneous-agent (HA) model with uninsurable idiosyncratic labor productivity risk and a ten-representative-agent (TE) model in which households correspond to fixed wealth deciles without such risk. At the aggregate level, both models generate qualitatively similar responses; however, the HA model exhibits a smaller recessionary impact driven by precautionary savings behavior, which stabilizes investment. At the distributional level, the models differ sharply. In the HA framework, tax shocks trigger endogenous mobility across wealth deciles. These inter-decile transition dynamics tend to benefit lower deciles. In contrast, the TA model features fixed household positions. Our findings highlight that while simpler multi-representative-agent models can approximate aggregate dynamics well, they may miss important distributional adjustment channels. The relevance of these mechanisms ultimately depends on the empirical importance of mobility across the wealth distribution, pointing to a key trade-off between model simplicity and accuracy.

This paper provides new causal evidence on how patent allowances affect firms and their employees based on quasi-random assignment of patent applications to examiners. Exploiting employer-employee records with newly linked German firm data and web-scraped patent documents, we show that patent-induced shocks reduce firm exit, improve productivity, and increase wages, with rent-sharing elasticities between 0.10 and 0.21. Wage gains are broadly observed across occupational tasks, with high heterogeneity: managers benefit disproportionately in publicly traded firms, whereas broader wage increases accrue to workers in non-traded firms. Our findings highlight the role of institutional features and firm organization in shaping how rents are shared.

This paper develops a micro-founded framework linking price-cost and wage markups to intangible assets. Intangible assets, once created, are a source of firm rents. Owing to limits to enforceable ownership and the non-rival nature of knowledge, these rents can be both retained by the origin firm and transferred to a competitor through poaching of workers. Search and matching frictions affect labor mobility and result in bargaining over rents between the firm and the worker. This environment generates hold-up in intangible asset creation and motivates rent sharing. Under non-compete agreements, poached workers face start delays that weaken outside options. Using microdata from the Netherlands, we document higher price-cost and wage markups in more intangible-intensive firms and lower wages for workers with non-compete agreements, consistent with the model.

Die Energieproduktivität in Deutschland ist in den vergangenen Jahren gestiegen. Inwiefern lässt sich daraus auf eine Transformation des Energiesystems und der Produktion schließen? Der Beitrag zeigt, dass der Anstieg der Energieproduktivität nur begrenzt auf Effizienzfortschritte innerhalb von Sektoren zurückzuführen ist, sondern auch durch Strukturwandel und den Rückgang energieintensiver Produktion getrieben wird. Eine Projektion des Endenergieverbrauchs bis 2030 deutet darauf hin, dass die energiepolitischen Zielwerte bei schwachem Wirtschaftswachstum erreichbar sind. Bei höherem Wachstum würden sie jedoch verfehlt. Daraus ergibt sich ein Zielkonflikt zwischen Energieverbrauchsreduktion und wirtschaftlicher Dynamik; es braucht zusätzliche Effizienzgewinne oder technologische Innovationen um ihn aufzulösen.

Many countries and regions remain below the level of economic activity of the world’s most advanced economies. Some countries form growth clubs, some are stuck in the middle-income trap, and some stay on a very low level of economic activity. Although this situation is well documented on the country level, there is less evidence at the sub-national level within countries. We estimate county-level capital stocks and price indices and provide a comprehensive county-level data set for Germany. We find no evidence of convergence across all counties even if we condition on important drivers of long-term growth such as physical and human capital accumulation. Instead, we identify five convergence clubs, using endogenous clustering. We analyze differences in growth paths and describe the identified clusters based on variations in contributions of capital, labor, and total factor productivity to economic growth. Additionally, we examine the role of migration for regional development and find that net migration has in particular contributed to growth in richer regions.

Nach einem mehrjährigen Abschwung hat im Verlauf des vergangenen Jahres eine Erholung in Deutschland eingesetzt. Während die exportorientierte Industrie angesichts weiter abnehmender Wettbewerbsfähigkeit, hoher geopolitischer Unsicherheit und handelspolitischer Belastungen kaum Tritt fasste, wurde die Erholung maßgeblich von der Binnenwirtschaft getragen. Der Energiepreisschock, der durch den Iran-Krieg ausgelöst wurde, dämpft die Erholung, dürfte sie aber nicht vollständig zum Erliegen bringen. Dafür sorgt der erheblich expansive Kurs der Finanzpolitik, der vor allem Unternehmen der Verteidigungsindustrie und des Tiefbaus stützt. Im Großteil des Verarbeitenden Gewerbes bleibt die Lage jedoch verhalten. Das Bruttoinlandsprodukt dürfte in diesem Jahr um 0,6 % und im Jahr 2027 um 0,9 % zunehmen, nachdem die Wirtschaftsleistung im Vorjahr mit einem Anstieg von 0,2 % kaum mehr als stagniert hat. Im Vergleich zum Herbstgutachten 2025 haben die an der Gemeinschaftsdiagnose beteiligten Institute damit ihre Prognose für das laufende Jahr deutlich um 0,6 Prozentpunkte und für das kommende Jahr um 0,4 Prozentpunkte nach unten korrigiert.