The current financial, economic and fiscal crisis is among other things characterised by complex interrelations between financial, fiscal, macroeconomic and political instability. One instability breeds another, with feedback loops generating self-reinforcing adverse cycles: The financial crisis...

We examine whether the introduction of the euro had a significantly positive impact on the synchronization of business cycles among members of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) which might arise due to the lack of country-specific monetary policy shocks in the euro area. Empirical evidence on...

We measure consumers’ use of cash by harmonizing payment diary surveys from seven countries. The seven diary surveys were conducted in 2009 (Canada), 2010 (Australia), 2011 (Austria, France, Germany and the Netherlands), and 2012 (the United States). Our paper finds cross-country differences...

In this paper selective issues of long-run sustainability of monetary unions are analyzed. Using theoretical insights and the experience of EMU up to now we argue that empirical evidence on OCA criteria for EMU suggests that benefits for the countries participating in EMU outweigh costs by a...

The paper develops a communication game that is applied to the question of central bank policy and independence. The game is about the preferred degree of conservatism of monetary policy and the game setting consists of a principal (politics), an agent (central bank) and an observer (financial...

This paper analyzes the institutional framework of central banks in ten Central and East European countries using the ECB as benchmark. It looks at the legislated objectives of these central banks, assesses the degree of political and functional independence and the status of their democratic...

We analyze the effectiveness of intervention in the European Monetary System by using daily data on the DEM-intervention activity of six European central banks, covering the period from August 1993 to April 1998. To test for the influence of intervention we apply EGARCH models. To allow for...

Ten years of inflation targeting worldwide provide valuable lessons. Inflation targeters (ITers) have been very successful in meeting their inflation targets (ITs). Industrial output sacrifice during inflation stabilization and industrial output volatility has frequently been lowered after IT...

This paper studies the effects of central bank intervention during the 1992- 1993 EMS crises on the D-mark/peseta and D-mark/French franc exchange rate. In particular, it is analyzed how interventions affected the probability of a speculative attack and market participants’ expectations about...

We use a Bayesian dynamic latent factor model to extract world, regional and country factors of real interest rate series for 22 OECD economies. We find that the world factor plays a privileged role in explaining the variance of real rates for most countries in the sample, and accounts for the...