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...

The flattening of the Phillips curve observed in the industrial countries has been attributed to globalisation, while the traditional explanation centres on monetary policy credibility. The empirical literature is not conclusive, since macroeconomic data are affected by substantial...

The introduction of the euro notes and coins in the first two months of 2002 was followed by a lively debate on the alleged inflationary effects of the new currency. In Italy, as in the rest of the euro area, survey-based measures signaled a much sharper rise in inflation than measured by the...

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...

In this paper we test for the potential bias in the estimated contribution of a supply restriction on lending to enterprises, as captured by the assessment of credit standards provided by the banks participating in the Eurosystem Bank Lending Survey (BLS banks). For Italy, we combine the...

The paper analyzes developments in bank lending in Italy during the financial crisis, assessing the relative contribution of demand and supply factors to lending deceleration. We find that the slowdown in lending was mainly due to a reduction in demand. For households, this can be attributed to...

More than three years since the outbreak of the sovereign debt crisis in the euro area the banking systems of several countries remain exposed to the vagaries of government bond markets. The paper analyzes the different channels through which sovereign risk affects banking risk (and vice versa),...

This paper proposes a conceptual framework that makes it possible to investigate the effects of central bank independence, the degree of centralization of wage bargaining and the interaction between those institutional variables on the real wage, unemployment and inflation. This is done by...

The paper examines micro data on Italian manufacturing firms� inventory behavior to test the Meltzer (1960) hypothesis according to which firms substitute trade credit for bank credit during periods of monetary tightening. It finds that their inventory investment is constrained by the...

This paper studies the implications of introducing large monopolistic banks, which can affect macroeconomic outcomes and thus the response of monetary policy to inflation, in a model with a collateral constraint linking the borrowers� credit capacity to the value of their durable assets....