Carsten Burhop und Guntram B. Wolff: Datenwahl, Methodenwahl und ihre Bedeutung für die Konjunkturgeschichte
We explore and compare the cyclical behavior of four measures for the net national product in Germany 1851–1913 taken from Hoffmann and Müller (1959) and Hoffmann (1965). While differences in the net national product levels of the four series have already been noted, we also find differences in their cyclical behavior. As a robustness check, we employ four different econometric trend-cycle-decomposition methods. The cyclical behavior of the series differs irrespective of the econometric techniques, especially for the 1870s. Furthermore, the “Great Depression” was only found with one method.