Window-dressing in German interwar balance sheets

German accounting rules value assets and liabilities asymmetrically and thus lead to grossly distorted balance sheets. In the interwar debate on a reform of disclosure regulation, financial experts considered the (undisclosed) tax balance sheet, which had to be drawn up separately for the corporate tax assessment, as a paradigm for adequate financial disclosure. However, due to tax secrecy thay were barred from analyzing tax documents. Using archival evidence, we analyze tax balance sheets from which the reliability of disclosed balance sheets of the interwar period can be assessed. It emerges that companies overstated their profits in the middand late 1920s, but grossly understated them in the Nazi economy.Germany, accounting history, window-dressing, tax balance sheet

The imposed gift of Versailles: the fiscal effects of restricting the size of Germany’s armed forces, 1924–1929

Weimar’s politicians used to attribute the continuous budget crises after the currency stabilization of 1923–4 to the burden put on the German economy by the Treaty of Versailles, in particular the reparation payments. This argument, which is still popular, neglects the fact that the restriction of the German military to 115,000 men relieved the German central budget considerably. In a counterfactual analysis we assess the savings in additional military costs and compare them to the reparation payments. Depending on the character of the foreign policy pursued by an unrestricted Germany, we find that the net effect of the Treaty’s stipulations on the German central budgets was either much lower than hitherto thought or even positive. This finding gives support to the argument that Germany suffered from home-made political failure even in the relatively stable period from 1924 to 1929.Treaty of Versailles, reparations, military budget, Dawes plan, Weimar Germany, peace dividend

"Fortress Europe" in long-term perspective: agricultural protection in the European Community, 1957-2003

Since its inception, the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has been discussed controversely. Data from the OECD and the World Bank show that the protectionist effects of the CAP between the 1960s and the 1980s were larger than those of its national predecessors. Moreover, there is evidence that already the piecemeal reforms of the 1980s re-duced the level of protection and support in the EU, that is prior to the MacSharry reform of 1992.Common Agricultural Policy; agricultural policy; protectionism; European integration; producer support estimate

Guns and butter - but no margarine: The impact of Nazi economic policies on German food consumtion, 1933-38

The German population's material standard of living during the 'peace years' of the Nazi regime (1933-38) is much debated. We use hitherto disregarded consumption data and the axiom of revealed preferences to test whether the material standard of living improved. We find that the food consumption bundle realized in 1935-36 must have been inferior to that of 1927-28 although GDP per capita was much higher. Even in 1937-38 consumers were probably worse off compared to 1927-28. We conclude that increasing consumption constraints forced German consumers to a diet and thus to a material standard of living that were much more frugal than national income figures suggest. --

Guns and butter - but no margarine : the impact of Nazi economic policies on German food consumtion, 1933-38

The German population's material standard of living during the 'peace years' of the Nazi regime (1933-38) is much debated. We use hitherto disregarded consumption data and the axiom of revealed preferences to test whether the material standard of living improved. We find that the food consumption bundle realized in 1935-36 must have been inferior to that of 1927-28 although GDP per capita was much higher. Even in 1937- 38 consumers were probably worse off compared to 1927-28. We conclude that increasing consumption constraints forced German consumers to a diet and thus to a material standard of living that were much more frugal than national income figures suggest

German net investment and the cumulative real wage position 1925-1929: on a premature burial of the Borchardt Debate

In der HSR, Nr. 70 hat Hans-Joachim Voth in die sogenannte 'Borchardt Debatte' zwischen deutschen und britischen Wirtschaftsgeschichtlern über die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung der Weimarer Republik eingegriffen. Voth stellt die für die Debatte entscheidende These in Frage, daß sich die Investitionsrate in der Weimarer Republik nicht wesentlich von der des Deutschen Kaiserreichs unterschieden hat und das Borchardts These auf Meßfehler zurückgeführt werden kann. Die These von der Schwäche der Wirtschaft in der Weimarer Republik sei daher widerlegt. Der vorliegende Beitrag setzt sich seinerseits mit Voths Ausführungen auseinander. Eine Sekundäranalyse der Daten zeigt, daß die Investitionsrate der Weimarer Republik tatsächlich beträchtlich unter der des Deutschen Reiches lag. Voths Argumente sind daher nicht ausreichend, Borchardts Hypothese zu widerlegen bzw. um die Debatte abzuschließen. (pmb

Local minimum wages in Germany, 1885-1914

oai:emporion.gswg.info:emporion_mods_00000018This dataset contains the ‘ortsüblichen Tagelohn gewöhnlicher Tagearbeiter’ (customary local daily wage of ordinary day laborers), which was determined by the German administration in consultation with local authorities and companies when calculating sickness benefits after the introduction of nationwide statutory health insurance in 1883. It was therefore not an average wage, but the lowest wage paid, which interestingly also took into account non-monetary wage benefits. As it was collected nationwide according to uniform criteria, it offers, in comparison with price data, the possibility of determining and comparing real wages and the standard of living in Germany at a very detailed local level. The data set presented here is limited to the reproduction of daily wages for 210 cities; hundreds of other smaller municipalities are listed in the sources cited

"Fortress Europe" in long-term perspective: agricultural protection in the European Community, 1957-2003

Since its inception, the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has been discussed controversely. Data from the OECD and the World Bank show that the protectionist effects of the CAP between the 1960s and the 1980s were larger than those of its national predecessors. Moreover, there is evidence that already the piecemeal reforms of the 1980s re-duced the level of protection and support in the EU, that is prior to the MacSharry reform of 1992

The Short Third Reich: On the Question of the Continuity of Socio-Economic Structures between the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich and the Federal Republic

A few years ago, economic historian Albrecht Ritschl proposed the thesis that the socio-economic structures of the Federal Republic of Germany were more strongly influenced by path dependencies from the Third Reich than by the Federal Republic's regulatory policy. I subject this thesis to a critical review. From a functional perspective, I argue with regard to (1) the intensity of competition, (2) material prosperity and its distribution, and (3) producer and consumer sovereignty that the early Federal Republic was characterized much more by ties to regulatory traditions from the Weimar period than by path dependencies from the Third Reich