During the turbulent 1970s and 1980s the Bundesbank established an outstanding reputation in the world of central banking. Germany achieved a high degree of domestic stability and provided safe haven for investors in times of turmoil in the international financial system. Eventually the...

Recent research has shown that optimal monetary policy may display considerable price-level drift. Proponents of price-level targeting have argued that the costs of eliminating the price-level drift may be reduced if the central bank responds flexibly by returning the price level only gradually...

Summary This paper explores the existence of the credit channel in the transmission of monetary policy in Germany on the basis of a structural analysis of aggregate bank loan data. The empirical analysis is carried out in a vector error correction model (VECM), which allows to identify long-run...

This paper argues that the existence of bank networks is important for banks' reactions to monetary policy. For the example of Germany, it is found that small banks access the interbank market indirectly through the large head institutions of their respective network organizations. The interbank...

This paper presents an overview of the results of a research project on monetary transmission pursued by the Eurosystem, which has analyzed micro data on firms and banks in several countries of the euro area in great detail. There is strong empirical support for an interest rate channel working...