Are restrictions on fiscal policy necessary for monetary policy to be able to deliver price stability? When households are Ricardian, the net present value of future fiscal surpluses needs to equate the real value of government debt absent inflation. We show that when households are not...

This paper analyses economic freedom for a sample of 21 OECD countries over the past 170 years on the basis of a new thoroughly revised Historical Index of Economic Liberty (HIEL). Long-term gains in economic freedom reached two-thirds of its potential maximum. The expansion of economic freedom...

The issue of sustainability has hardly left any sector or area untouched. This also applies to financial markets: the EU Member States are trying to transform their economies into net-zero carbon ones, the Commission has presented a comprehensive action plan on sustainable finance, and the ECB...

One of the focuses of recent literature has been the macroeconomic effects of macroprudential policy instruments. The innovation of this paper is that it studies the effects of transparent macro-prudential policies on price stability. The results presented herein provide the first empirical...

This working paper offers some considerations on the monetary policy framework of the European Central Bank. The trade-offs arising from adopting a point target configuration over a range target one are assessed in terms of their flexibility vs. inflation anchoring properties. This layout is...

The ECB is independent, but it is also accountable to the European parliament (EP). Yet, how the EP has held the ECB accountable has largely been overlooked. This paper starts addressing this gap by providing descriptive statistics of three accountability modalities. The paper highlights three...

The European Central Bank (ECB) recently proclaimed a more active role for itself in the fight against climate change. Did the European Parliament (EP) play a part in this regard, and if so what was it? To answer this question, this paper builds on a multi-method text analysis of original...

Interactions between monetary and macroprudential policy are crucial in safeguarding price and financial stability. This study investigates the macroeconomic and financial impacts of monetary and macroprudential policy interactions in South Africa, a leading African economy in developing...

The change in macroeconomic conditions since the ECB's strategy review in 2021 towards an environment characterised by above-target inflation, high interest rates, and renewed concerns about elevated government debt has been a vocal reminder of the intricate interdependencies between monetary...

Orthodox economic theory presents the policy maker with an impossible choice: eradicate unemployment at the cost of undesirable inflation or keep prices stable by maintaining some level of involuntary unemployment. This is the canon, as embodied in the natural rate of unemployment theory and the...

This paper aims to examine the influence of controlling corruption, tax burden reduction, price stability and trade liberalization on trade-related illicit financial flows. The analysis focuses on a sample of 120 developing and emerging countries, drawn from data collected over the period...

CO2 -Abgaben wie Steuern und Zertifikate als Instrumente der Klimapolitik üben einen starken Effekt auf die gesamtwirtschaftliche Preisentwicklung aus. Eine insbesondere preisstabilitätsgerechte Rückgabe der CO2 -Einnahmen soll dazu beitragen, überschießende Reaktionen von Lohnentwicklung,...

Using individual-level survey data for both advanced economies and emerging markets spanning over 45 years for 42 countries, we show that cohorts who have had higher exposure to past inflationary episodes (levels, as well as to more persistent or to more volatile inflation), systematically...

What are the macroeconomic consequences of a government that is limited in its willingness or ability to raise primary surpluses, and a central bank that accommodates its interest-rate policy to the fiscal conditions? I address this question in a dynamic stochastic sticky-price model with...

In recent years central bankers have devoted increased attention to the question of whether and how to intervene to address the growing environmental and climate crisis. The climate intervention debate gained momentum during a period of low inflation and loose monetary policy in core economies...

The ECB's price stability mandate has been defined by the Treaty. But the Treaty has not spelled out what price stability precisely means. To make the mandate operational, the Governing Council has provided a quantitative definition in 1998 and a clarification in 2003. The landscape has changed...

This paper offers an overview of the mandate of the European Central Bank (ECB), as defined by its objectives, the instruments available to achieve them and the constitutional framework that the ECB shall observe in pursuing them. The objectives include the primary objective of maintaining price...

Aim: In this article, the state of the discourse concerning the final goal of the modern central bank is presented, in particular the aim of price stability, understood as low and stable inflation. Design/Research methods: The article was prepared on the basis of scientific publications in the...

This paper analyses economic freedom for a sample of 21 OECD countries over the past 170 years on the basis of a new thoroughly revised Historical Index of Economic Liberty (HIEL). Long-term gains in economic freedom reached two-thirds of its potential maximum. The expansion of economic freedom...

This book contains papers and proceedings presented at a conference that took place at the Bank of Israel (BOI) in July 2022, and a Governors’ Panel held in July 2021. The focus is on inflation, inflation targeting, and various macro and micro aspects of the Israeli economy, along with...

For a quarter of a century, the western world has enjoyed a macroeconomic environment characterized by low and stable inflation. Over the last two years, this benign state has dramatically changed. In America and Europe, inflation has resurged with unexpected vigor. Treated at first by central...

After introducing digital currency, the central bank emerges as a monopolist bank. It then faces an "impossible trinity". To achieve price stability and financial stability, optimal consumption allocation is sacrificed. In this paper, I show that fiscal policy designed in coordination with the...

During the Great Moderation, macroeconomic volatility declined while firm markups increased. We document a causal relationship between volatility and markups due to tacit collusion. We exploit the legalisation of interstate banking as an exogenous decrease in volatility. Using an instrumental...

Since New Zealand adopted Inflation Targeting as a monetary policy in 1990, many countries have adopted inflation targeting. Due to the high accountability and high transparency of central banks under IT policy, it is expected to achieve price stability easily. In this paper, we investigate...

By the end of 2020, the European Central Bank (ECB) will present the results of its monetary policy strategy review. What changes are to be expected and what changes are needed? This report covers two areas of the strategy review. First, alternatives to the current definition of price stability...

This Occasional Paper analyses how significant expansions in central banks' mandates, roles and instruments can result in challenges to the independence of monetary policy. The paper reviews, in particular, some of the key challenges to central bank independence brought about by the global...

This Policy White Paper assesses several main elements of ECB's upcoming review of its monetary policy strategy, announced in January 2020. Four aspects of the review are discussed in detail: i) ECB's definition of price stability and the arguments for and against inflation targeting; ii) the...

Strong evidence now exists both in macro and micro data that price/wage durations are depent on the state of the economy and especially inflation. We embed this dependence in a macro model of the US that otherwise does well in matching the economy s behaviour in the last three decades; it now...

The popularity of inflation targeting has risen in the last decade and the number of countries that adopted inflation targeting as their monetary policy framework surpassed 40 by the end of 2016. This study analyzes whether inflation targeting around the world has been successful in terms of...

This working paper offers some considerations on the monetary policy framework of the European Central Bank. The trade-offs arising from adopting a point target configuration over a range target one are assessed in terms of their flexibility vs. inflation anchoring properties. This layout is...

One of the focuses of recent literature has been the macroeconomic effects of macroprudential policy instruments. The innovation of this paper is that it studies the effects of transparent macro-prudential policies on price stability. The results presented herein provide the first empirical...

The European Central Bank (ECB) recently proclaimed a more active role for itself in the fight against climate change. Did the European Parliament (EP) play a part in this regard, and if so what was it? To answer this question, this paper builds on a multi-method text analysis of original...