Senior Non-Resident Fellow Jürgen von Hagen offers his recommendations for the proper monetary policy to lead the eurozone out of the crisis. He argues that the tentative recovery in the euro area indicates that both monetary and fiscal policy can be normalised soon. However, because delaying...

In response to the financial and economic crisis, central banks, unlike in the 1930s, have created enormous amounts of money. There are fears that this will lead to inflation, but it is base money (the central bank's liabilities) that has expanded; total monetary aggregates have not. By contrast,...

â?¢ Capital Markets Union (CMU) is a welcome initiative. It could augment economic risk sharing, set the right conditions for more dynamic development of risk capital for high-growth firms and improve choices and returns for savers. This offers major potential for benefits in terms of jobs,...

The Bank of England, the Federal Reserve (Fed) and the European Central Bank (ECB) have responded to the crisis with exceptional initiatives resulting in a major increase in their balance sheets. After the ECBâ??s end-2011 launch of three-year bank refinancing (LTRO), there has been speculation...

Listen to the press conference call. The European Council has outlined the creation of a Single Resolution Mechanism (SRM), complementing the Single Supervisory Mechanism. The thinking on the SRMâ??s legal basis, design and mission is still preliminary and depends on other major initiatives,...

Estimates of the recapitalisation needs of the euro-area banking system vary between â?¬50 and â?¬600 billion. The range shows the considerable uncertainty about the quality of banksâ?? balance sheets and about the parameters of the forthcoming European Central Bank stress tests, including...

Europe has responded to the crisis with strengthened budgetary and macroeconomic surveillance, the creation of the European Stability Mechanism, liquidity provisioning by resilient economies and the European Central Bank and a process towards a banking union. However, a monetary union requires...

Inflation rates can differ across regions of monetary unions. We show that in the euro area, the US, Canada, Japan and Australia, inflation rates have been substantially and persistently different in different regions. Differences were particularly substantial in the euro area. Inflation...

In a monetary union, national fiscal deficits are of limited help to counteract deep recessions; union-wide support is needed. A common euro-area budget (1) should provide a temporary but significant transfer of resources in case of large regional shocks, (2) would be an instrument to counteract...

See comments by the authors 'Addressing weak inflation: The ECBâ??s Shopping List' and comment 'Negative ECB deposit rate: But what next?' 1. Introduction There are clear benefits to price stability. High inflation can distort corporate investment decisions and the consumption behaviour of...