We estimate the reaction function of monetary policy in the Euro area and derive the Taylor-type policy rule that a would-be ECB would have followed since the beginning of the European Monetary System (1979-2003). We first follow the standard GMM methodology developed by Clarida, Galí and...

In this article we estimate a time-varying " natural " rate of interest (TVNRI) for a synthetic euro area over the period 1979Q1-2002Q4 using a small backward-looking macroeconomic model, broadly following a methodology developed by Laubach and Williams (2003) for the United States. The Kalman...

This paper focuses on the expectations hypothesis of the term structure on long-term government bonds. Standard tests (based on the relationships between the change in the long-term rate and the spread and between the change in the short-term rate and the spread) lead to a puzzle close to the...

In this paper we argue that banks anticipate short-term market rates when setting interest rates on loans and deposits. In order to include anticipated rates in an empirical model, we use two methods to forecast market rates - a level, slope, curvature model and a principal components model -...

This article looks at the factors explaining the level of US and European long-term interest rates between 1986 and 2005. We begin by selecting the structural determinants of long-term interest rates, dealing with the US and European cases separately. However, a univariate framework cannot...

We introduce a new measure called Inflation-at-Risk (I@R) associated with (left and right) tail inflation risk. We estimate I@R using survey-based density forecasts. We show that it contains information not covered by usual inflation risk indicators which focus on inflation uncertainty and do...

This paper shows how interbank market fragmentation disrupts monetary policy implementation. Fragmentation is defined as the situation where some banks are cut from the interbank loan market. The paper incorporates fragmentation in an otherwise standard theoretical model of monetary policy...

In this paper, we provide determinacy conditions, i.e. conditions ensuring the existence and uniqueness of a bounded solution, in a purely forward-looking linear Markov switching rational expectations model. We thus settle the debate between Davig and Leeper (2007) and Farmer et al. (2010). The...