Output gap revisions can be large even after many years. Real-time reliability tests might therefore be sensitive to the choice of the final output gap vintage that the real-time estimates are compared to. This is the case for the Federal Reserve's output gap. When accounting for revisions in...

This paper compares within-sample and out-of-sample fit of a DSGE model with rational expectations to a model with adaptive learning. The Galí, Smets and Wouters model is the chosen laboratory using quarterly real-time euro area data vintages, covering 2001Q1-2019Q4. The adaptive learning model...

Differences in labour market institutions and regulations between countries of the monetary union can cause divergent responses even to a common shock. We augment a multi-country model of the euro area with search and matching framework that differs across Ricardian and hand-to-mouth households....

This report looks backwards to the worldwide use of (enhanced) lender of last resort (LOLR) and market maker of last resort (MMLR) facilities during the global financial and the pandemic crises. It discusses how LOLR and MMLR facilities have worked; looking ahead, it considers what benefits and...

We develop an agent-based model for the euro area that fulfils widely recommended requirements for nextgeneration macroeconomic models by i) incorporating financial frictions, ii) relaxing the requirement of rational expectations, and iii) including heterogeneous agents. Using macroeconomic and...

In this paper the vision of the "Young" and "Elder" Lamfalussy on the origins of instability in capitalist economies will be contrasted. The young Lamfalussy found the origins of instability in medium-term cumulative processes in the real sector of the economy, very much inspired by the vicious...

Since early 2021, consumer price inflation has risen sharply across the advanced economies, including the US, the euro area and Denmark. We argue that the surge in inflation in the three economies in 2021-22 reflects multiple factors, including the Covid19 pandemic in 2020-21 and the Russian war...

The COVID-19 pandemic had disastrous effects on health and economic activity worldwide, including in the Euro Area. The application of mandatory lockdowns contributed to a sharp fall in production and a rise in unemployment, inducing an expansionary fiscal and monetary response. Using a uniquely...

This paper provides a comprehensive empirical analysis of the role of discretionary fiscal policy for inflation differentials across the 19 euro area countries over the period 1999-2019. The results confirm existing (older) literature that it is difficult to find robust evidence of the fiscal...

We study how monetary policy affects local market competition in a union of countries experiencing different economic conditions: the euro area. We find that when monetary conditions tighten (loosen), from the point of view of an individual economy, market concentration increases (declines)....

How is the price level determined in a monetary union when the common monetary policy pegs the nominal interest rate? How are the price levels in the member countries determined? We extend the fiscal theory of the price level to the case of a heterogenous monetary union. Price level determinacy...

This paper evaluates the impact of the March 2020 European Central Bank recommendation that banks do not pay dividends or buy back shares on their market values. It documents a causal negative impact on bank share prices of around 7% during the two weeks following its announcement. The...

This paper investigates to what extent the introduction of negative monetary policy rates altered the competitive behaviour in the euro area banking sector. Specifically, it analyses the effect that negative policy rates had on euro area banks' market power in comparison to banks that have not...

Part of the present inflation is caused by the breakdown of globalization, in particular supply chains, part is caused by the Corona Pandemic, in particular lockdowns, part is caused by the Ukrainian War, part is caused by European sanctions, and part - and not the smallest one - is caused by...

Topic analysis of the European Central Bank (ECB) press conferences reveals meaningful communication patterns. Similar press conferences are clustered in time ¦ The revisions to the ECB narrative accompany the changes in policy direction. Market volatility increases when the ECB substantially...

In this paper we augment the Bayesian unobserved components model of the EU Commission to estimate the cyclical component of total factor productivity (TFP gap) with a factor structure to include a wide array of business cycle indicators. We demonstrate that this model extension considerably...

This paper investigates determinants of convergence in GDP per capita in the euro area and the EU between 1995 and 2021. It finds that the COVID-19 crisis temporarily slowed convergence but the estimated negative impact is significantly smaller than during the global financial crisis. Diverging...

This paper studies how banks’ balance sheets and funding costs interact in the transmission of monetary-policy rates to banks’ credit supply to firms. To do so, we use credit-registry data from Germany and Portugal together with the European Central Bank’s policy-rate cuts in mid-2014. The...

We assess the impact on bank bond holdings of regulatory changes in the requirements for bail-inable liabilities designed to facilitate an orderly resolution process, while reducing taxpayers-funded bailouts. Analyzing confidential data on securities holdings by banks, we document that the...

We develop a Bayesian Structural VAR (SVAR) model to study the relationship between different kinds of energy shocks and inflation dynamics in Europe. Specifically, we include in our specification two separate energy markets (oil and natural gas) and two target macroeconomic variables, measuring...

We use household surveys to describe differences in wages, income, wealth and liquid assets of households born in their country of residence (“natives”) vs. those born in other EU and non-EU countries (“immigrants”). The differences in wealth are more substantial than the differences in...

This paper proposes a new mutual exciting regime-switching model where crises can spread contagiously across countries. Each country has its own hidden stochastic process that determines whether it is in a normal or crisis regime. The mutual-excitation component allows interactions in the Markov...

The Eurosystem implements its monetary policy through a set of monetary policy instruments (MPIs) that are either part of the standard toolbox or are developed to deal with major economic and financial events with a potential adverse impact on price stability and/or the transmission of monetary...

This paper provides a chronology of the main financial events over the last 15 years, spanning three main crises. The first is the global financial crisis in 2008-09, and the second is the euro area sovereign debt crisis in 2010-12. Both events heralded significant reforms of the EU’s...

Soaring energy prices since fall 2021 have prompted European governments to introduce policy measures to support households and businesses. In this paper, we employ the MATRIX model, a multi-sector and multi-agent macroeconomic model calibrated on the Euro Area, to analyze the economic and...