The inflation measure used by the European Central Bank excludes housing costs that are borne by home owners even though they make up more than a tenth of household final consumption expenditure in the euro area. Has the exclusion of owner-occupied housing costs driven a wedge between the...

The 2007-2009 period has been characterised by an oil shock followed by a financial crisis. Higher oil prices and the prospect of higher borrowing costs are likely to reduce the productive potential of OECD economies. The present study provides illustrative numerical estimates of the impact...

How far to go – and to remain – in the direction of highly expansionary monetary policy hinges on the balance of marginal benefits and costs of additional monetary easing and its expected evolution over time. This paper sketches a framework for assessing this balance and applies it to four...

With population ageing, fiscal consolidation has become of paramount importance for euro area countries. Consolidation can be pursued in various ways, with different effects on potential growth, which itself will be dragged down by ageing. A dynamic general equilibrium model with overlapping...

The 2005 reform of the EU Stability and Growth Pact has provided leeway for governments to let their fiscal deficit temporarily breach the 3% rule to finance the immediate budgetary cost of structural reform, such as compensation schemes to offset redistributive effects. Against this backdrop,...