RESEARCH AREAS

Financialization–History, Economics, Politics

The widely held belief that financial deepening benefits the economy by efficiently allocating capital and diversifying risk was shaken to its core by the breadth and scope of the 2008/09 financial crisis. This research project combines 140 years of economic history with state-of-the-art econometric methods to gain new insights into the relationship between finance, growth and crises.

Housing Markets in History

For economists there is no price like home—at least not since the global financial crisis. Fluctuations in house prices and their importance for the macroeconomy have become a rapidly expanding research field. The economic history of advanced economies is spattered with narratives about booms and busts in real estate prices. Yet we know surprisingly little about long-run trends and cycles in house prices. This research project aims to fill this void.

Long-term Economic Persistence

Simply put, economic persistence examines the historical factors that affect economic performance today. As such, it combines insights from economic development, history and growth. Ultimately, it is a quest for the deep-rooted geographic, institutional, educational, genetic and cultural determinants of comparative economic development. This research project will emphasize the long-lasting legacy of colonialism with a special focus on Latin America.

Size of Finance

In the years prior to the recent financial crisis, wages and value added of the financial sector skyrocketed relative to the rest of the economy. This research project aims to provide new insights into the growth and change of the financial sector and to advance our understanding of common trends and differences across countries in its historical evolution. As a central part of the project, we construct a dataset to measure the contribution of the financial sector to GDP in advanced economies since 1870.

NEW RESEARCH

Can central banks defuse rising stability risks in financial booms by leaning against the wind with higher interest rates? This paper studies the state-dependent effects of monetary policy on financial crisis risk. Based on the near-universe of advanced economy financial cycles since the 19th century, we show that discretionary leaning against the wind policies during […]

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Germany is world champion in exporting capital (“Exportweltmeister”). No other country invests larger amounts of savings outside its borders. However, Germany plays in the third division when it comes to investment performance, as we show in this paper. We study the returns on German foreign investments from 1950 to 2017 and find that: (1) Germany’s […]

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Gewinner und Verlierer des deutschen Immobilienbooms. Deutschland steht vor einer neuen Wohnungsfrage. Der anhaltende Boom am Immobilienmarkt spaltet die Gesellschaft in Gewinner und Verlierer. Auf der einen Seite haben die Preissteigerungen seit 2011 deutsche Immobilienbesitzer um etwa 3 Billionen Euro reicher gemacht. Diese Vermögenzuwächse entsprechen in etwa dem deutschen Bruttoinlandsprodukt eines Jahres und übersteigen die […]

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This paper studies the synchronization of financial cycles across 17 advanced economies over the past 150 years. The comovement in credit, house prices, and equity prices has reached historical highs in the past three decades. The sharp increase in the comovement of global equity markets is particularly notable. We demonstrate that fluctuations in risk premiums, […]

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The risk premium puzzle is worse than you think. Using a new database for the U.S. and 15 other advancedeconomies from 1870 to the present that includes housing as well as equity returns (to capture thefull risky capital portfolio of the representative agent), standard calculations using returns to total wealthand consumption show that: housing returns […]

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Central banks increasingly rely on macroprudential measures to manage the financial cycle. However, the effects of such policies on the core objectives of monetary policy to stabilise output and inflation are largely unknown. In this paper we quantify the effects of changes in maximum loan-to-value (LTV) ratios on output and inflation. We rely on a […]

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