Economists and central bankers no longer consider monetary aggregates relevant for inflation forecasts. We explain this neglect by advancing and testing the hypothesis that monetary aggregates are only relevant for inflation in unsettled monetary and inflationary conditions. When inflation is...

This paper quantitatively describes different aspects of the COVID-19 pandemics: new cases, hospitalisations, intensive-care admissions and deaths, while illustrating their changing relationships over time. It then assesses how the different variables have affected relevant sectoral and...

It is a cliché in official economic institutions' publications and their leaders' speeches to lament exceptional uncertainty. The complaint does, however, ring true currently. A solid empirical basis should be given to this view by properly measuring macroeconomic uncertainty. To measure...

In 2020, European governments mitigated the economic impact of COVID-19 lockdowns and other pandemic-fighting programmes through a host of initiatives. These included efforts to support credit, such as guarantees for bank loans, particularly to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). We...

A disconnect between European Union integration and the level of interest of EU citizens in European matters is a potential weakness in the EU's democratic foundations. The existence and possible size of this disconnect is a critical issue in assessing the potential for further integration of...

This paper attempts to fill in the gaps in the European Central Bank's framework review. In March 2024, the European Central Bank published the results of a review of its operational framework. After discussing how the ECB operational framework has changed since the Great Financial Crisis, we...