This Occasional Paper analyses how significant expansions in central banks' mandates, roles and instruments can result in challenges to the independence of monetary policy. The paper reviews, in particular, some of the key challenges to central bank independence brought about by the global...

This paper analyses the implications of the evidence on micro price setting gathered by Price-setting Microdata Analysis Network (PRISMA) for inflation dynamics and monetary policy, relying on calibrated models and direct empirical evidence. According to models calibrated to the euro area micro...

One argument for floating the Chinese renminbi (RMB) is to insulate China's monetary policy from the US effect. However, we note that both theoretical considerations and empirical results do not offer a definite answer on the link between exchange rate arrangement and policy dependence. We...

This paper uses a factor-augmented vector autoregressive model (FAVAR) estimated on U.S. data in order to analyze monetary transmission via private sector balance sheets, credit risk spreads and asset markets in an integrated setup and to explore the role of monetary policy in the three...

Globalization has effected business cycle developments in OECD countries and has increased activities of firms across national borders. This paper analyzes whether these two developments are linked. We use a new firm-level dataset on the foreign activities of German firms to test whether foreign...

Since the European Central Bank’s (ECB’s) 2003 strategy review, the importance of macro-financial amplification channels for monetary policy has increasingly gained recognition. This paper takes stock of this evolution and discusses the desirability of further incremental enhancements in the...

In addition to its direct effects on the global trading and production structure, the ongoing process of globalisation may have important implications for the interaction of exchange rates and the overall economy. This paper presents evidence regarding possible changes in the role of exchange...

Since the European Central Bank’s (ECB’s) 2003 strategy review, the importance of macro-financial amplification channels for monetary policy has increasingly gained recognition. This paper takes stock of this evolution and discusses the desirability of further incremental enhancements in the...

We examine whether the Chinese exchange rate is misaligned and how Chinese trade flows respond to the exchange rate and to economic activity. We find, first, that the Chinese currency, the renminbi (RMB), is substantially below the value predicted by estimates based upon a cross-country sample,...

We study the implication of a multipolarization of the international monetary system on cross-currency volatility. More specifically, we analyze whether the internationalization of the yuan could modify the impact of asset supply and trade shocks on the euro-dollar exchange rate, within a...