Large increases in TARGET2 balances in the euro area since 2008 have led to concern and debate about the appropriate interpretation and policy reaction - in particular in TARGET2 creditor countries such as Germany. Against this background, we examine the main drivers of the increases and...

The concerns of macroeconomic policymakers regarding the management of the COVID-19 crisis are reflected by the major, unbending, and brisk interventions they have had, including monetary authorities. The present paper aims at identifying central banks' contributions in managing the pandemic...

High-frequency (HF) surprises of relevant asset prices around central bank meetings are extensively employed in the literature to identify the effects of conventional/unconventional monetary policy. This identification strategy assumes that these surprises reflect either a single unconventional...

The present paper provides an overview on current developments of cash usage and issue of central bank digital currency (CBDC) in the euro area and proposes a possible design of a digital euro that allows for instant offline payments. Cash usage at the point-of-sale decreased perceptibly in the...

This study examines the changing nature of ECB communication and how it impacts euro area financial markets over the past two decades. We applied a combination of topic modelling and sentiment analysis for over 2000 public ECB Executive Board member speeches, as well as over 200 ECB press...

We test for state-dependent bias in the European Central Bank's inflation projections. We show that the ECB tends to underpredict when the observed inflation rate at the time of forecasting is higher than an estimated threshold of 1.8%. The bias is most pronounced at intermediate forecasting...

We test for bias and efficiency of the ECB inflation forecasts using a confidential dataset of ECB macroeconomic quarterly projections. We investigate whether the properties of the forecasts depend on the level of inflation, by distinguishing whether the inflation observed by the ECB at the time...

The global financial crisis and the coronavirus pandemic were marked by expansionary policies of key central banks in an attempt to stop the recession. The degree of expansiveness of monetary policy was unprecedented. As a result of expansionary policies, global inflation has been present since...