This paper reviews the arguments against the ECB’s extended asset purchase programme. It is shown that the main lines of arguments — arguments those suggesting that under current economic conditions it was not needed to pursue quantitative easing, and arguments those indicating that...

The ECB decision to cut its benchmark interest rate in November 2013 has been severely criticised in Germany. Against this background, the President of the Bundesbank justified the ECB’s monetary policy stance in recent speeches. At the same time, however, he argued that this stance carries...

This paper applies the economic argumentation put forth by the OMT’s opponents before the German Federal Constitutional Court [Bundesverfassungsgericht] to the full allotment policy practiced by the ECB since October 2008. The comparison shows that under this line of reasoning, the full...

This paper argues that Europe is unable to get the euro crisis under control because it has chosen a crisis management strategy that is diametrically opposed to the one applied in the global financial crisis. In 2008, crisis management focused on measures that instilled confidence, while...

The ECB’s decision in favour of additional unconventional monetary policy measures has been severely criticised by German economists, experts and the media. This is consistent with the relentless criticism that the ECB has been subject to over recent years, even though the facts clearly show...

Im Juni 2013 fand in Karlsruhe die mündliche Verhandlung im Hauptsacheverfahren Europäischer Stabilitätsmechanismus/Europäische Zentralbank statt. Dabei ging es im Kern um die Frage, ob das Outright-Monetary-Transactions-Programm der EZB mandatswidrig ist. Die ökonomische Logik, die zu dem...

Nach der EZB-Zinssenkung Anfang November 2013 hat sich Bundesbankpräsident Jens Weidmann mehrfach zu Wort gemeldet, um die Sicht der Bundesbank zum derzeitigen Kurs der Geldpolitik zu erläutern. In seinen Stellungnahmen rechtfertigt er grundsätzlich den derzeit expansiven Kurs der...

Als Ursache für die internationale Finanzkrise werden immer wieder die globalen Zahlungsbilanzungleichgewichte genannt. Wie belastbar ist dieser Erklärungsansatz, auch vor dem Hintergrund zunehmender Ungleichgewichte in der Euro-Zone – also in Staaten, die den Wechselkurs ihrer Währungen am...