Gregor von Schweinitz

Gregor von Schweinitz

Assistant Professor of Economics, esp. Quantitative Macroeconomics

Leipzig University

Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH), Member of the Leibniz Association

Biography

Welcome! I will join Corvinus University in September 2024.

Currently, I am working as an Assistant Professor for Quantitative Macroeconomics at Leipzig University and as head of the research group “Volatility, Growth and Financial Crises” at the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH). Previously, I was an interim professor for Applied Macroeconomics at the University of Rostock, a guest researcher at the Deutsche Bundesbank and a lecturer at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg.

My research interest lie on macroeconomic consequences of financial crises. My research spans three broader topics. First, my work concerns the empirical interaction between financial markets and macroeconomic outcomes. In particular, I investigate the importance of credit demand and supply fluctuations for aggregate fluctuations, and the role of sovereign debt limitations (in the form of sovereign ratings or sovereign bond demand) on fiscal policy and macroeconomic outcomes. The second strand of my research concerns the implementation of models to produce timely warnings of impending crises. The third strand focuses on the combination of macroeconomic and microeconomic datasets for structural macroeconomic analysis.

Interests

  • Economic crises
  • Business cycle dynamics
  • Structural identification in empirical macroeconomics
  • Early-warning models

Education

  • Ph.D. Economics, 2013

    University of Halle-Wittenberg

  • Diploma, Mathematics, 2010

    Technical University of Munich

Job market paper

Gregor von Schweinitz
October 2023

The importance of credit demand for business cycle dynamics

This paper contributes to a better understanding of the important role that credit demand plays for credit markets and aggregate macroeconomic developments as both a source and transmitter of economic shocks. I am the first to identify a structural credit demand equation together with credit supply, aggregate supply, demand and monetary policy in a Bayesian structural VAR. The model combines informative priors on structural coefficients and multiple external instruments to achieve identification. In order to improve identification of the credit demand shocks, I construct a new granular instrument from regional mortgage origination. I find that credit demand is quite elastic with respect to contemporaneous macroeconomic conditions, while credit supply is relatively inelastic. I show that credit supply and demand shocks matter for aggregate fluctuations, albeit at different times. Credit demand shocks mostly drove the boom prior to the financial crisis, while credit supply shocks were responsible during and after the crisis itself. In an out-of-sample exercise, I find that the Covid pandemic induced a large expansion of credit demand in 2020Q2, which pushed the US economy towards a sustained recovery and helped to avoid a stagflationary scenario in 2022.
Most recent version

Ongoing work

Ruben Staffa and Gregor von Schweinitz (2023). Fiscal Policy under the Eyes of Wary Bondholders.

Most recent version

Annika Camehl and Gregor von Schweinitz (2023). What explains international interest rate co-movement?.

IWH DP 3/2023 Online Appendix

Publications

Makram El-Shagi and Gregor von Schweinitz (2022). Why they keep missing: An empirical investigation of sovereign bond ratings and their timing. Scottish Journal of Political Economy, 69(2), 186-224; Adam Smith Price for the Best Paper of the Year.

DOI Accepted version IWH DP 1/2017 Code and Data github

Makram El-Shagi and Gregor von Schweinitz (2021). Fiscal policy and fiscal fragility: Empirical evidence from the OECD. Journal of International Money and Finance, 115, 102292.

DOI Most recent version IWH DP 13/2019 CFDS DP 5/2019

Gregor von Schweinitz, Lena Tonzer and Manuel Buchholz (2020). Monetary policy through exchange rate pegs: The removal of the Swiss franc-Euro floor and stock price reactions. International Review of Finance, 21(4), 1382-1406.

DOI Most recent version IWH DP 9/2018

Johannes Beutel, Sophia List and Gregor von Schweinitz (2019). Does machine learning help us predict banking crises?. Journal of Financial Stability, 45, 100693.

DOI Most recent version IWH DP 2/2019 Bundesbank DP 48/2018 Code github

Jesus Crespo-Cuaresma, Katharina Wendt and Gregor von Schweinitz (2019). On the empirics of reserve requirements and economic growth. Journal of Macroeconomics, 60, 253-274.

DOI Most recent version IWH DP 8/2018

Peter Sarlin and Gregor von Schweinitz (2019). Optimizing Policymakers' Loss Function in Crisis Prediction: Before, Within or After?. Macroeconomic Dynamics, 25(1), 100-123.

DOI Most recent version IWH DP 6/2015 ECB WP 2025

Makram El-Shagi and Gregor von Schweinitz (2018). The Joint Dynamics of Sovereign Ratings and Government Bond Yields. Journal of Banking and Finance, 97, 198-218.

DOI Most recent version IWH DP 4/2015 Bundesbank DP 13/2016 Code and Data github

Makram El-Shagi and Gregor von Schweinitz (2016). Qual VAR Revisited: Good Forecast, Bad Story. Journal of Applied Economics, 19(2), 293-321.

DOI IWH DP 12/2012 Code and Data github

Makram El-Shagi, Axel Lindner and Gregor von Schweinitz (2016). Real Effective Exchange Rate Misalignment in the Euro Area: A Counterfactual Analysis. Review of International Economics, 24(1), 37-66.

DOI IWH DP 6/2014 Code github

Makram El-Shagi and Gregor von Schweinitz (2016). The Diablo 3 Economy: An Agent Based Approach. Computational Economics, 47, 193-217.

DOI

Makram El-Shagi and Gregor von Schweinitz (2015). Risk and Return - Is there an Unholy Cycle of Ratings and Yields?. Economics Letters, 129, 49-51.

DOI Most recent version

Makram El-Shagi, Tobias Knedlik and Gregor von Schweinitz (2013). Predicting financial crises: The (statistical) significance of the signals approach. Journal of International Money and Finance, 35 (2013), 76-103.

DOI IWH DP 3/2012

Tobias Knedlik and Gregor von Schweinitz (2012). Macroeconomic Imbalances as Indicators for Debt Crises in Europe. Journal of Common Market Studies, 50(5), 726-745.

DOI IWH DP 12/2011

Working Papers

Joao Carlos Claudio and Gregor von Schweinitz (2020). On the International Dissemination of Technology News.

IWH DP 25/2020

Gregor von Schweinitz (2013). Flight Patterns and Yields of European Government Bonds.

IWH DP 10/2013

Teaching

Leipzig University

  • Growth and Development: Empirics (Master). Course taught in Fall 2019, 2021, 2023.

  • Advanced Business Cycles (Master). Course taught in Fall 2017 and 2018.

  • Macroeconomics (Bachelor). Course taught in Fall 2020.

  • Regular seminars on business cycle dynamics and financial stability (Bachelor).

University of Rostock

  • Advanced Macroeconomics (Master). Course taught in Fall 2022.

  • Labor Economics (Master). Course taught in Fall 2022.

  • Quantitative Macroeconomics (Master). Course taught in Spring 2023.

  • Macroeconomics (Bachelor). Course taught in Spring 2023.

  • Applied Macroeconomics (Bachelor). Course taught in Fall 2022.

  • Analysis and Forecasting of Macroeconomic Time Series (BA). Course taught in Spring 2023.

  • Seminars on business cycle dynamics and financial stability (Bachelor and Master).

Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg

  • Advanced Macroeconomic Theory (Master). Course taught in Spring 2012 (teaching assistant) and 2016.

  • Regular seminars on business cycle dynamics and financial stability (Bachelor).

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