The prices of futures contracts on short-term interest rates are commonly used by central banks to gauge market expectations concerning monetary policy decisions. Excess returns - the difference between futures rates and the realized rates - are positive, on average, and statistically...

This paper analyzes the operation of the Eurosystem�s public and private assets purchases programmes for monetary policy purposes, quantifying the potential effect on the Italian economy. First we give an exhaustive account of the main transmission channels by which the purchases can be...

We explain why the macroeconomic effects of shocks to inflation of the same size, but opposite sign, are not necessarily symmetric. All in all, the costs of deflation and disinflation tend to exceed those of inflation due to the presence of constraints in the economy, namely the zero lower bound...

In this paper, after discussing the theoretical underpinnings of unconventional monetary policy measures, we review the existing empirical evidence on their effectiveness, focusing on those adopted by the European Central Bank and by the Federal Reserve. These measures operate in two ways:...

Whether a central bank should share with the public its views about the future evolution of short term interest rates is an unresolved issue. Disclosing this information might allow a more precise control of market expectations and a more effective achievement of the ultimate goals of the...

We study the impact of the publication of central banks� macroeconomic projections on the dynamic properties of an economy where (i) private agents have incomplete information and form their expectations using recursive learning algorithms; (ii) the short-term nominal interest rate is set...

We analyse a simplified New-Keynesian model with an unobserved aggregate cost-push shock in which firms and the central bank have different information about the shock. We consider a linear policy rule where a pure inflation targeting central bank decides how much to react to the shock given its...