Konjunktur und Wachstum[Business cycles fluctuations and long-term growth]

According to mainstream macroeconomic theory, i.e. the New Neoclassical Synthesis (NNS), business cycle fluctuations and monetary impulses do not affect production and employment in the long term. Persistence of demand-side shock are only acknowledged in special cases such as hysteresis on the labour market or fairness considerations of employees. However, in the after-math of the Great Financial Crisis 2007/2008 strong criticism of NNS has been raised, in particu-lar, concerning the neglect of financial markets. This paper provides a systematic survey of mac-roeconomic theory after World-War II and the criticism levelled at NNS after the Great Financial Financial Crisis. Furthermore, alternative approaches are presented. For example, alternative the-ories such as Financial New Keynesianism or Post-Keynesianism show that business cycle fluc-tuations and monetary impulses can have long-term consequences because of imperfect financial markets and decision making under an uncertain environment. This paper shows that a clear-cut distinction between short and long run maintained by NNS cannot be upheld. As a consequence, a case-by-case assessment is necessary.