A distinguishing feature of the ECB's monetary policy setup is the preannouncement of a minimum bid rate in its weekly repo auctions. However, whenever interest rates are expected to decline, the minimum bid rate is viewed as too high and banks refrain from bidding, severely impeding the ECB's...

In recent macroeconomic theory, relative price variability (RPV) generates the central distortions of inflation. This paper provides first evidence on the empirical relation between inflation and RPV in the euro area focusing on threshold effects of inflation. We find that expected inflation...

This paper investigates how the dynamic adjustment of the European overnight rate Eonia to the term spread and the ECB's policy rate has been affected by rate expectations and the operational framework of the ECB. In line with recent evidence found for the US and Japan, the reaction of the Eonia...

Although stable money demand functions are crucial for the monetary model of the exchange rate, empirical research on exchange rates and money demand is more or less disconnected. This paper tries to fill the gap for the Euro/Dollar exchange rate. We investigate whether monetary disequilibria...

The Eurosystem's main refinancing operations (MRO) are key for the interbank money market and the monetary transmission process in the euro area. This paper investigates how money market rates respond to the information revealed by various aspects of an MRO auction outcome. Our results confirm...

It is well known that the rock-paper-scissors game has no pure saddle point. Weshow that this holds more generally: A symmetric two-player zero-sum game hasa pure saddle point if and only if it is not a generalized rock-paper-scissors game.Moreover, we show that every finite symmetric...

We show that for many classes of symmetric two-player games, the simple decision rule \imitate-the-best" can hardly be beaten by any other decision rule. Weprovide necessary and sufficient conditions for imitation to be unbeatable and showthat it can only be beaten by much in games that are of...

Sick-pay is a common provision in labor contracts. It insures workersagainst a sudden loss of income due to unexpected absences andhelps them smooth consumption. Therefore, many governments findsick-pay socially desirable and choose to mandate its provision. Butsick-pay is not without its...