IREF Europe

Working Paper Series. Written by David Howden. Canonical Austrian business cycle theory holds that a lower rate of interest lengthens the structure of production. Fillieule (2007) derives the opposite conclusion: the average period of production rises with the rate of interest. I argue in this article that the apparent conflict dissolves once two distinct meanings of lengthening […]

Heterogeneous effects across bank types written by Karl-Friedrich Israel, Moritz Pfeifer, Tim Sepp , and Benjamin Treitz.  May 25, 2026 Monetary policy changes the stability of German banks differently based on their ownership and business goals. Existing literature shows that monetary policies stabilize markets but can also encourage institutions to take higher risks. Using monthly balance sheet data […]

  by Tom Bugdalle and Moritz Pfeifer, Institute for Economic Policy, Department of Economics, University of Leipzig We revisit the euro’s promise of convergence through a new Divergence Monitor tracking business and financial cycle synchronization since the 1980s. Business cycles became more aligned after 1999, but financial cycles stayed volatile and split into persistent core–periphery […]