The literature on the effectiveness of macroprudential policy tools is still in its infancy and has so far provided only limited guidance for policy decisions. In recent years, however, increasing efforts have been made to fill this gap. Progress has been made in embedding macroprudential policy...

For Germany, Spain, France, the Netherlands and the US an Error Correction Model with a long-term non-linear wage equation is estimated by 3-SLS to obtain consistent estimates, accounting for endogeneity and common shocks. On the basis of the estimated parameter elasticities of wages with...

The economic development in the United States has been very successful over the past decade, with high economic growth being accompanied by relatively low inflation. This article explores this development, comparing the economy of the United States with that of the EMU. In addition, it considers...

We study the capital structure dynamics of Central and Eastern European firms in order to get a better understanding of the quantitative and qualitative development of the financial systems in this region. The dynamic model we use endogenizes the target leverage as well as the adjustment speed...

Since the mid nineties unemployment has substantially decreased in some EMU-countries. One important factor underlying this development is wage moderation. This paper investigates wage formation and wage development. Using a theoretical wage bargaining model main determinants of formation are...

We investigate whether ECB balance sheet policy announcements in the wake of the global financial crisis have affected the ECB.s monetary policy credibility as measured by long-term inflation expectations, by looking at their effects on euro area inflation swap rates of maturities up to 10...

We quantify the impact of explicit FOMC policy rate guidance used as an unconventional monetary policy tool at the zero lower bound of the policy rate on US equity prices, as well as on the risk indicators of credit and CDS spreads, implied volatilities and US equity index risk reversals. We...

The interest rate channel of monetary policy works both through short- and long-term interest rates. At the zero lower bound of the policy rate, monetary policy can still be effective through unconventional monetary policy measures. We study whether the sensitivity of Canadian government bond...

Country members of EMU as well as the United States have improved their fiscal positions during the course of the past decade. This article considers the impact of further government debt and deficit reductions in the EMU area. First the literature on government finance establishing the role of...

This study focuses on Dutch shareholders' structures and the participation by funds and banks in particular. Statistics show that foreigners possess the main part of Dutch shares, funds a relatively large part and banks only a small part. In the Netherlands there has been an increasing interest...