Quantitative easing (QE) affects banks’ profitability in three main ways. First, as QE drives up bond prices, banks holding such bonds see their balance sheets strengthened. Second, QE reduces long-term yields and thereby reduces term spreads. With this, the lending-deposit ratio spread falls,...

As the global financial crisis unfolded, the European Central Bank (ECB) and other central banks greatly extended their monetary policy toolboxes and adjusted their operational frameworks. These unconventional monetary policies have left central banks with large balance sheets. As growth picks...

Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) are reshaping the financial landscape globally. Already implemented in ten countries, CBDCs offer digital payment solutions, particularly beneficial for regions with limited access to traditional banking systems that seek to promote financial inclusion....

Four major developments have challenged the status quo and reopened the debate on the forms that money will take in the future: 1) use of cash as a medium of exchange has declined; 2) distributed ledger technology (DLT) has led to the emergence of thousands of digital cryptocurrencies; 3) some...

This paper applies the info-gap approach to the unconventional monetary policy of the Eurosystem and so takes into account the fundamental uncertainty on inflation shocks and the transmission mechanism. The outcomes show that a more demanding monetary strategy, in terms of lower tolerance for...

This Policy Contribution tries to answer two main questions: can cryptocurrencies acquire the role of money? And what are the implications for central banks and monetary policy? Money is a social institution that serves as a unit of account, a medium of exchange and a store of value. With the...

Central banks face new challenges. First, the potential long-term decline in neutral rates of interest in advanced economies could reduce the space for central banks to make policy-rate cuts. Second, the potential flattening of the Phillips curve (ie the weakening of the relationship between...

How does monetary policy impact upon macroprudential regulation? This paper models monetary policy's transmission to bank risk taking, and its interaction with a regulator's optimization problem. The regulator uses its macroprudential tool, a leverage ratio, to maintain financial stability,...