This paper surveys the literature on monetary policy at the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates. Certain crucial insights regarding expectations have been neglected in recent research in this field. Taking this into account, the interactions between demand and supply shocks appear crucial...

Following the Maastricht criteria, a country seeking to join the European Monetary Union cannot have an inflation rate in excess of 1.5 percent plus the average inflation rates in the three 'best performing' EU countries. This inflation reference value is a non-increasing function of the number...

This paper examines which economic, fiscal, external, financial, and institutional characteristics of countries affect the likelihood that they adopt inflation targeting as their monetary policy strategy. We estimate a panel binary response transition model for 60 countries and two subsamples...

This paper investigates how changes in the monetary policy framework have affected the overnight money market lending rate for the Dutch segment of the euro area during tranquil and crisis times. We present an EGARCH model on the volatility of the overnight lending rate. The results show that...

We analyse the relationship between tail risk and crisis measures by governments and the central bank. Using an adjusted Merton model in a game theoretical set-up, the analysis shows that the participation constraint for interventions by the central bank and the governments is less binding if...

We study inflation targeting under uncertainty. Although uncertainty in the values of structural parameters makes the policy maker naturally more cautious, it does not immediately lead to the optimal monetary policy rule. We examine thus whether there exists a policy rule that improves welfare...

We study the implications of uncertainty for ination targeting. We apply Brainard's static framework which imposes multiplicative uncertainty in the monetary transmission. Brainard's main result is that in the presence of uncertainty, monetary authorities become naturally more cautious. But this...

We provide new insights on the formation of inflation expectations - in particular at a time of great financial and economic turmoil - by evaluating results from a survey conducted from July 2009 through July 2010. Participants in this survey answered a weekly questionnaire about their short-,...

During the Great Crisis, most governments in industrial countries supported their domestic financial sector under stress and responded to strong declines in output growth with fiscal stimulus packages. Starting in 2010, attention focused on the sustainability of the resulting debt burdens. We...

This paper examines robust estimators of core inflation for Belgian historical CPI data, and for euro area Harmonised Indices of Consumer Prices. Evidence of fat tails in the cross-sections of price changes is provided by traditional measures, as well as by a robust measure of the tail weights...