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...

There is some evidence that interdependencies among European banks have increased over the past 15 years and that the potential of systemic risks in banking has shifted from a national level to a European level. Whereas wholesale financial markets are considered to be highly integrated within...

The ECB's strategy of inflation targeting as currently practiced requires only minor adjustments to allow the ECB to best provide price stability and support the EU's general economic policies. The key to inflation targeting is a distinct and symmetric inflation target that serves as a benchmark...

The ECB was not slow to react to the rising inflation, but rather reacted very strongly as the price shocks escalated and the supply bottlenecks persisted longer than widely expected. The ECB raised rates later and less forcefully than the Federal Reserve because the inflation dynamics in the...

This paper analyses the Nairu in the Euro Area and the influence that monetary policy had on its development. Using the Kalman-filter technique we find that the Nairu has varied considerably since the early seventies. The Kalman-filter technique is applied here for the first time using explicit...