The paper evaluates the ability of market participants to anticipate monetary policy decisions in the euro area and in 13 other countries. First, by looking at the magnitude and the volatility of the changes in the money market rates we show that the days of policy meetings are special days for...

This paper analyses the cross-country heterogeneity in retail bank lending rates in the euro area and presents newly developed pass-through models that account for the riskiness of borrowers, the balance sheet constraints of lenders and sovereign debt tensions affecting interest rate-setting...

The paper provides an analysis of the euro area money and bond markets and their infrastructure since the introduction of the euro. Significant development in terms of integration took place in both markets in general to a various degree for the different segments. However, there remain room for...

We evaluate the ECB’s monetary policy strategy against the underlying economic structure of the euro area economy, in normal times and in times of severe financial dislocations. We show that in the years preceding the financial crisis that started in 2007 the strategy was successful at...

This paper provides empirical evidence on the use of monetary policy instruments and procedures (MPIP) in EU countries. In particular, it focuses on three important issues which arise in this context. Fist, we examine the structural position of the EU money markets. Second , evidence is...

We analyse high-frequency changes in the euro area money market yield curve on dates when the ECB regularly sets and communicates decisions on policy interest rates to construct different indicators of monetary policy news relating to policy decisions and to central bank communication. The...

While consumption habits have been utilised as a means of generating a hump shapedoutput response to monetary policy shocks in sticky-price New Keynesian economies,there is relatively little analysis of the impact of habits (particularly, external habits) onoptimal policy. In this paper we...