Two recent proposals for overcoming the euro area crisis make the case for monetary financing of the public sector. Watt proposes that the ECB finances public investment directly, while Pâris and Wyplosz contend that public debt may be effectively restructured by burying parts of it in the...

In the July/August issue of Intereconomics, Silke Tober criticised a proposal put forth by Andrew Watt to solve the euro crisis through the use of monetary financing of the public sector. Tober argued that there are valid reasons to keep monetary and fiscal policy separate from one another and...

We study the characteristics of inflation targeting as a shock absorber in response to large shocks in the form of natural disasters for a sample of 76 countries over the period 1970-2015. We find that inflation targeting improves macroeconomic performance following such shocks as it lowers...