In some recent studies, the question of the origins of central banking has been revisited, suggesting that beyond Swedish and British central banking, a number of earlier European continental institutions would also have played an important role. However, it has often been difficult to access...

This report summarises the findings of the task force. It is organised as follows. Section 2 starts with a discussion of the relevance of credit risk for central banks. It is followed by a short introduction to credit risk models, parameters and systems in Section 3, focusing on models used by...

The Eurosystem collateral framework (ESCF) has played a key role in the ECB monetary policy implementation since 1999. Moreover, the financial and sovereign debt crisis and with it the increased reliance of banks on central bank credit have underlined the importance of central bank collateral...

Even before their deployment in major economies, one of the concerns that has been voiced about central bank digital currency (CBDC) is that it might be too successful and lead to bank disintermediation, which could intensify further in the case of a banking crisis. Some also argue that CBDC...

As digital payments become increasingly popular, many central banks are looking into the issuance of retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) as a new central bank monetary liability in addition to banknotes and commercial bank reserves. CBDC will have broadly the same balance sheet and...

Commodity prices play an important role in economic developments in most of the 24 Western and Central African (WCA) countries covered in this paper. It is confirmed that in the light of rising commodity prices between 1999 and 2005, net oil exporters recorded strong growth rates while net...

This paper reviews financial stability challenges in the EU candidate countries Croatia, Turkey and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. It examines the fi nancial sectors in these three economies, which, while at very different stages of development and embedded in quite diverse economic...

Global financial integration has been associated with divergent patterns of real convergence and the current account in emerging markets. While countries in emerging Asia have been running sizeable current account surpluses, countries in emerging Europe have been facing large current account...

This paper reviews selected aspects of economic relations between the EU and Russia, focusing on the impact that the last two waves of EU enlargement have had on Russia, as well as the role of the euro in Russia. The analysis suggests that if EU enlargement has had any diversion effects on trade...