This study tests for a break in the persistence of EMU government bond yield spreads examining data from France, Italy and Spain and using German interest rates as a kind of benchmark. The results reported here provide evidence for breaks between 2006 and 2008. The persistence of the yield...

On 11-12 May 2011, SUERF and the Belgian Financial Forum, in association with the Brussels Finance Institute and the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) organized the 29th SUERF Colloquium "New Paradigms in Money and Finance?". All the papers in the present SUERF Study are based on...

This paper analyzes market integration among long term government bonds in the Eurozone since the inception of the Euro in 1999. While it is commonly assumed that markets for EMU government bonds were closely integrated prior to the EMU debt crisis, we find that there is significant time...

Since the beginning of the crisis, euro area governments have experienced greater fiscal stress than governments of advanced economies outside the euro area with weaker fiscal fundamentals. What has been the source of this fragility and how can it be corrected? The cause of the instability in...

The ongoing policy strategy review presents a unique opportunity for the ECB to examine how to best employ its immense power to fulfil its mandate. Two challenges require urgent attention. First, the “lowflation” problem – the outcome of overly tight policies that allowed inflation to...

This paper develops and estimates a Quadratic-Gaussia model of the U.S. term structure that can accommodate the rich dynamics of inflation risk premia over the 1983-2013 period by allowing for time-varying market prices of inflation risk and incorporating survey information on inflation...

Central banks normally accept debt of their own governments as collateral in liquidity operations without reservations. This gives rise to a valuable liquidity premium that reduces the cost of government finance. The ECB is an interesting exception in this respect. It relies on external...

Central banks normally accept debt of their own governments as collateral in liquidity operations without reservations. This gives rise to a valuable liquidity premium that reduces the cost of government finance. The ECB is an interesting exception in this respect. It relies on external...

Central banks normally accept debt of their own governments as collateral in liquidity operations without reservations. This gives rise to a valuable liquidity premium that reduces the cost of government finance. The ECB is an interesting exception in this respect. It relies on external...

This paper develops and estimates a Quadratic-Gaussian model of the U.S. term structure that can accommodate the rich dynamics of inflation risk premia over the 1983-2013 period by allowing for time-varying market prices of inflation risk and incorporating survey information on inflation...