We ask whether recent changes in monetary policy due to the financial crisis will be temporary or permanent. We present evidence from two surveys — one of central bank governors, the other of academic specialists. We find that central banks in crisis countries are more likely to have resorted...

Wordscores uses word frequencies to extract information from texts with known policy positions. Wordscores uses this information to estimate the unknown policy positions of so - called virgin texts. We apply Wordscores to the ECB President's introductory statements following Governing Council...

We discuss the theoretical rationale for central bank communication about future policy rates as part of inflation targeting or of forward guidance. We also summarize actual central bank communication about future policy rates in major advanced countries as well as empirical evidence on the...

This paper examines whether the increased use of macroprudential policies since the global financial crisis has affected the impact of (euro area and foreign) monetary policy on mortgage lending in Ireland and the Netherlands, which are both small open economies in the euro area. Using...

Central banks are increasingly reaching out to the general public to motivate and explain their monetary policy actions. One major aim of this outreach is to guide inflation expectations; another is to ensure accountability and create trust. This article surveys a rapidly-growing literature on...

We study whether the sensitivity of Swedish interest rates to economic news was affected by the zero lower bound and the Riksbank's monetary policies. Our results suggest that the sensitivity of interest rate swaps to Swedish macroeconomic news was reduced at the effective zero lower bound at...

We re-examine the conventional view that to be successful, fiscal adjustments should rely on spending cuts and not on tax increases. We apply the Bai-Perron structural break filter instead of ad hoc rules to identify fiscal adjustments and their successfulness in 20 OECD countries. Our results...

We estimate the effects of government consumption and investment shocks during prolonged episodes of low interest rates, which we consider as proxy for the effective lower bound. Using a panel VAR model for 17 advanced countries, in which we include real government spending, output, inflation,...

After the global financial crisis, several central banks introduced unconventional monetary policies, such as QE. If QE increases asset prices, but does not boost the real economy to the same extent, the relationship between the financial and the real sector will weaken. This study investigates...

This paper takes stock of the literature on the relationship between central bank policies and inequality. A new paradigm which integrates sticky-prices, incomplete markets and heterogeneity among households is emerging, which allows to jointly study how inequality shapes macroeconomic...