The interest rate represents an important monetary policy tool to steer investment in order to reach price stability. Therefore, implications of the exact form and magnitude of the interest rate-investment nexus for the European Central Bank's effectiveness in a low interest rate environment...

The belief that the ECB follows the US Federal Reserve in setting its policy is so entrenched with market participants and commentators that the search for empirical support would seem to be a trivial task. However, this is not the case. We find that the ECB is indeed often influenced by the...

Is the Euro area as a whole, or are individual Euro-area member countries facing a period of sustained lower economic growth, a phenomenon known as secular stagnation? We tackle this question by estimating equilibrium real interest rates and comparing them to actual real rates. Since the...

This paper explores the extent to which changes to long-term interest rates in major advanced economies have influenced long-term government bond yields in Emerging Asia. To gauge long-term interest spillover effects, the paper uses VAR variance decompositions with high frequency data. Our...

This paper examines business cycle synchronization in the European Monetary Union with a special focus on the core-periphery pattern in the aftermath of the crisis. Using a quarterly index for business cycle synchronization by Cerqueira (2013), our panel data estimates suggest that it is...

We argue that, under certain conditions, firms consider exports as a substitute for domestic demand. Our econometric model for six euro area countries suggests domestic demand and capacity constraints as additional variables for export equations. We apply the exponential and logistic variant of...

We argue that, under certain conditions described by a sunk cost hysteresis model, firms consider exports as a substitute for domestic demand. This is valid also on the macroeconomic level where the switch from the domestic market to the export market and vice versa takes place in a smooth...

Low international competitiveness of a set of euro area countries, which have become evident by large current account deficits and rising risk premiums on government bonds, is one of the most challenging economic policy issues for Europe. We analyse the role of private restructuring and public...

Building on the growing evidence on the importance of large data sets for empirical macroeconomic modeling, we estimate a large-scale FAVAR model for 18 OECD member countries. We quantify the global effects of economic policy uncertainty shocks and check whether the signs, the magnitude, and the...

The interest rate is generally considered as an important driver of macroeconomic investment. As an innovation, this paper derives the exact shape of the "hysteretic" impact of changes in the interest rate on macroeconomic investment under the scenarios of both certainty and uncertainty. We...