Die markttheoretische Erklärung der Konjunktur

Traditional macroeconomic theories of the business cycle examine the mutual dependence of aggregative variables. The competitive process, i.e. competitive moves and counter-moves by corporations, are not taken into consideration, since the macroeconomic method operates on the aggregate level only. In this work, the author attempts to link macroeconomic theorizing and competition theory in two different ways. He begins by presenting empirical evidence of the cyclical behavior of German corporations, and then derives a business cycle model in which traditional macroaggregates are replaced by variances. By using spread variables for model building, the author makes a new way of causal inference possible. He demonstrates that the macroeconomic business cycle is the aggregative result of heterogenous actions of heterogeneous agents acting in a competitive environment.