Within a Monetary Union, we assume that the policy of a hard-nosed central bank results in a real appreciation of the Union currency, which is in contradiction with the growth targets of several countries. These countries may join together to question the policy of the bank. As a consequence,...

Under ordinary circumstances, the fiscal implications of central bank policies tend to be seen as relatively minor and escape close scrutiny. The global financial crisis of 2008, however, demanded an extraordinary response by central banks which brought to light the immense power of central bank...

In this article, the issue of the monetary independence problem in view of the Romania's European Monetary Union accession is investigated empirically. It is frequently argued that for such a country, the main cost of participation in a currency area is the loss of monetary policy independence....

On 5-6 September 2012 SUERF held its 30th Colloquium "States, Banks, and the Financing of the Economy" at the University of Zürich, Switzerland. The papers included in this SUERF Study are based on contributions to the Colloquium. All the chapters in this publication discuss from different...

In the wake of the European financial and sovereign debt crisis there is a revived interest in the constitutional position of the European Central Bank (ECB) in the European Union legal order, notably its independence and democratic legitimacy. A new generation of researchers, witnessing and in...

Since May 2010 at the latest, the ECB has been criticized for financing government bonds – at least indirectly – and for tolerating to be put under pressure by the fiscal side. The ECB itself has justified its securities markets programme and, thus, its government bond purchases by the need...

This article discusses a form of fiscal monetization that produces losses in the central bank's balance sheet, without a permanent increase in the money base. If an independent central bank acts as a long-sighted policymaker, an optimal helicopter monetary policy can be identified. At the same...

In this paper, the author aims to question the assumptions underlying the economic case for the independent European Central Bank (ECB) and argues that although a European Clearing Agency (ECA) of the type Keynes envisaged for the international economy is not a panacea for the economic problems...

This paper considers how the "true" common monetary policy that is conducted by the ECB under various sources of uncertainty will differ from the policy that was agreed in the Maastricht Treaty, and how the uncertainties may induce a representative government to criticise the common monetary...

In this paper, the monetary policy independence of European nations in the years before European Monetary Union (EMU) is investigated using cointegration techniques. Daily data is used to assess pairwise relationships between individual EMU nations and ‘lead' nation Germany, to assess the...