This paper examines the impact of labour and product market reforms on economic growth in 25 OECD countries between 1985 and 2013, and tests whether this impact is conditioned by the fiscal policy stance, i.e. whether there are fiscal expansions or adjustments. Our local projection results...

Written for undergraduate and graduate students of finance, economics and business, the fourth edition of Financial Markets and Institutions provides a fresh analysis of the European financial system. Combining theory, data and policy, this successful textbook examines and explains financial...

This paper investigates how countries' micro-prudential regulatory regimes are related to banks' systemic risk. We use a bank-level systemic risk indicator that can be decomposed into a bank's individual risk and its systemic linkage. To proxy the strictness of a country's regulatory regime, we...

Using fourteen years of data on Dutch consumers' trust in financial institutions, we find that financially literate consumers are more likely to trust banks, insurance companies and pension funds, and the competence and integrity of the managers of these institutions. This holds both for...

This paper starts with a discussion of the various aspects of accountability of central banks. On the basis of this discussion we construct an indicator for accountability for 16 central banks, including the European Central Bank. It is shown that the degree of accountability differs...

Transparency of central banks - defined here as the degree of genuine understanding of the monetary policy process and policy decisions by the public - has become a major issue. The authors use the term disclosure whenever we refer to the activities of a central bank to enhance the public s...

Using 59 studies, we perform a meta regression analysis of studies examining the relationship between inflation and central bank independence (CBI). There is a negative and significant relation between inflation and CBI in OECD countries, although the results are sensitive to the indicator used...

The recent wave of mergers and acquisitions in the European banking sector has raised concerns that bank profitability will rise because of less competitive market conditions. This paper analyses the relationship between concentration, competitiveness, efficiency and profitability in the...

We examine the classical Gibrat's law or Law of Proportionate Effects (LPE) using Blundel and Bond (1998)'s two-step Generalized Method of Moments dynamic panel model for a mixed sample of more than 1500 banks in 29 OECD and 36 non-OECD countries. Our analysis show that size distribution of...

According to some economists, central banks should use ‘helicopter money' (monetary financing of government expenditure or transfers to households) to boost inflation (expectations). Based on a survey among Dutch households, we examine whether respondents intend to spend the money received via...