This paper offers a comprehensive comparison of the structure of banking and financial markets in the euro area. Based on this, several hypotheses about the role of banks in monetary policy transmission are developed. Many of the predictions that have been proposed for the U.S. are deemed...

Using an extensive dataset on public speaking events by ECB and euro area National Central Bank (NCB) officials, we show that communication outside of ECB regular monetary policy meeting days has a significant effect on daily movements in Eonia rates, market-based inflation expectations and...