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Die vorliegende Kurzexpertise hat die Ursachen unterschiedlicher Formen eines Währungskonflikts und seine Auswirkungen auf die deutsche und europäische Wirtschaft beschrieben und quantifiziert. In der öffentlichen Debatte wird die Manipulation einer Währung meist anhand einer beobachteten Veränderung des Wechselkurses diagnostiziert. Dabei wird häufig übersehen, dass Wechselkurse auch auf wirtschaftspolitische Maßnahmen reagieren, die nicht mit dem Ziel beschlossen wurden, den Wechselkurs zu beeinflussen. Deshalb werden in der vorliegenden Kurzexpertise im Rahmen eines mikrofundierten und geschätzten DSGE-Modells für Deutschland, den restlichen Euroraum und die restliche Welt insgesamt acht Währungskonfliktszenarien simuliert, mit deren Hilfe zwischen einer gezielten Steuerung des Wechselkurses und einer endogenen Wechselkursreaktion unterschieden werden kann. [.] ; Kurzexpertise für das Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie Projekt Nr. 45/19 (Az. 23305/003). ; This expertise describes and quantifies the causes of various forms of currency manipulation and its effects on the German and European economy. The first part shows what is meant by a currency war. In public debate, the manipulation of a currency is usually diagnosed on the basis of an observed change in the exchange rate. However, it is often overlooked that exchange rates also react to economic policy measures that were not decided with the aim of influencing the exchange rate. These include, for example, the policy of quantitative easing in the USA and the euro zone, but also the trade conflict triggered by the USA. In the second part, eight scenarios of a possible currency conflict are simulated and their effects on the German and European economy are quantified using the ifo DSGE model. Overall, the effects are small. In particular, the effects of the introduction of permanent import tariffs in the rest of the world on real gross domestic product in the euro zone and on the external value of the euro are negligible in quantitative terms. By contrast, Germany in particular benefits in the short-run from a currency conflict in the rest of the world, which is initiated by an unexpected and temporary cut in policy rates of these central banks. The results are similar if the central banks in the rest of the world use the exchange rate directly as an instrument and devalue their currency against the euro. The most significant short-term effects occur in a competitive devaluation, in which the ECB reacts to the trade and currency conflict initiated in the rest of the world with a cut in policy rates, which counteracts the appreciation of the euro.

Globalization has led to huge increases in import volumes, increasing the importance of imports for total output. Since imports are a volatile component, they are difficult to forecast and strongly influence the forecast accuracy of gross domestic product. We introduce the first leading indicator constructed to forecast import growth, the Import Climate. It builds on the idea that the import demand of the domestic country should be reflected in the expected export developments of its main trading partners. A foreign country's expected exports are, in turn, determined by its trading partners' business and consumer confidence and its own price competitiveness. In a real-time forecasting experiment, the Import Climate outperforms standard business cycle indicators at short horizons for France, Germany, Italy, and the United States for the first release of data. For Spain and the United Kingdom, our indicator works particularly well with the latest vintage of data.

Globalization has led to huge increases in import volumes, but the literature on import forecasting is still in its infancy. We introduce the first leading indicator especially constructed for total import growth, the so-called Import Climate. It builds on the idea that the import demand of the domestic country should be reflected in the expected export developments of its main trading partners. A foreign country's expected exports are, in turn, determined by business and consumer confidence in the countries it trades with and its price competitiveness. In a pseudo out-of-sample, real-time forecasting experiment, the Import Climate outperforms standard business cycle indicators at short horizons for France, Germany, Italy, and the United States for the first release of import data. For Spain and the United Kingdom, our leading indicator works particularly well with the latest vintage of import data.

Die Entscheidung der Briten vom 23. Juni 2016, die Europäische Union zu verlassen, hat zu unmittelbaren und starken Reaktionen an den Finanzmärkten geführt. Weltweit brachen Börsenkurse ein, das britische Pfund verlor deutlich an Wert, und aktienmarktbasierte Volatilitätsmaße stiegen stark an. An den Tagen nach dem Referendum häuften sich die Fragen nach den Auswirkungen des Brexit-Votums auf die deutsche Konjunktur. Der Beitrag zeigt, dass die deutsche Wirtschaft in diesem und im nächsten Jahr zwar einen Dämpfer erhalten wird, da eine konjunkturelle Abschwächung in Großbritannien und eine Abwertung des britischen Pfunds den Außenhandel und eine erhöhte Unsicherheit die deutschen Investitionen beeinträchtigen dürften. Allerdings werden die Wachstumseinbußen mit weniger als einem Zehntel Prozentpunkt im Jahr 2016 und mit bis zu zwei Zehntel Prozentpunkten im Jahr 2017 wohl eher gering ausfallen und damit den robusten Aufschwung, in dem sich die deutsche Wirtschaft seit nunmehr drei Jahren befindet, nicht gefährden.

We publish a dataset of raw tweets collected via the Twitter Streaming API in the context of the onset of the war, which Russia started in Ukraine on February 24, 2022. In total,
we gathered 8.7 million original tweets between February 17 and March 3, 2022, produced by 2.3 million individual user accounts.

We collected the data using Twitter's streaming API (represents 1% of the total traffic on Twitter) and filtered for all English Tweets containing at least one of the hashtags #ukraine, #russia, and #conflict. In addition, the data has been annotated with availability tags, resulting from rehydration attempts at two points in time: directly after data acquisition and shortly before manuscript submission. This may provide information on Twitter moderation policies. We share only the Tweet IDs with the corresponding availability information in this repository.