The sovereign debt crisis has made it clear that central banking is more than keeping inflation low. Central banks are also responsible for financial stability. An essential tool in maintaining financial stability is provided by the capacity of the central bank to be the lender of last resort in...

The ECB has announced that when government and corporate bonds come to maturity in the context of its QE-program, new bonds will be bought in the market so as to keep the money stock (money base) unchanged. This creates a "window of opportunities" for the ECB. It could replace the old bonds with...

The sovereign debt crisis has made it clear that central banking is more than keeping inflation low. Central banks are also responsible for financial stability. An essential tool in maintaining financial stability is provided by the capacity of the central bank to be the lender of last resort in...

The major central banks now operate in a regime of abundance of bank reserves. As a result, they can only raise the money market rate by increasing the rate of remuneration of bank reserves. This, in turn, leads to large transfers of the central banks' profits (and more) to commercial banks that...

We study the evolving operating procedures used by the ECB since its creation. During the period up to 2015, bank reserves were scarce and the ECB, like other central banks, used a corridor system in which the money market rate could fluctuate within the bounds set by the lending and the deposit...