One popular view on the current strength of the US dollar is that the higher growth in the US compared to Europe has stimulated foreigners to buy American assets, thereby driving up the exchange rate. In this paper a modified portfolio balance model is presented, in which it is shown that the...

In this paper, the monetary transmission mechanism within the European Monetary Union is investigated. The impulse response functions and forecast error variance decompositions of a structural vector error correction model (SVECM) are compared with those of a New Keynesian theoretical model. The...

One popular view on the current strength of the US dollar is that the higher growth in the US compared to Europe has stimulated foreigners to buy American assets, thereby driving up the exchange rate. In this paper a modified portfolio balance model is presented, in which it is shown that the...

One of the main criticisms on the original Taylor rule is the so-called real time critique; because data on especially the output gap are only available after some quarters the original Taylor rule is not operational. Moreover, Taylor rules estimated with ex post revised data could result in...

We estimate Taylor rules for the euro area using Consensus expectations for inflation and output growth and we compare these estimates with more conventional specifications in which actual outcomes are used. According to the model with Consensus data, the ECB takes expected inflation and...

We show that comments by euro area central bankers contain information on future ECB interest rate decisions, but that the comments mainly reflect recent developments in macroeconomic variables. Furthermore, models using only communication variables are outperformed by straightforward Taylor...

One of the main criticisms on the original Taylor rule is the so-called real time critique; because data on especially the output gap are only available after some quarters the original Taylor rule is not operational. Moreover, Taylor rules estimated with ex post revised data could result in...

We estimate Taylor rule models for the euro area using Consensus Economics forecasts of inflation and output growth for the period 1998.6-2010.8. We first examine whether the recent financial crisis has affected ECB policies. Our results indicate that the ECB puts stronger emphasis on...

In the empirical literature, not much support is found for the uncovered interest parity. Especially with free floating exchange rates, the forward rate is a biased predictor of the future exchange rate. This phenomenon can both be explained by an absence of rational expectations or by risk...

This report presents an exploratory study on asset bubbles in The Netherlands over the period 1973-1997. Apart from an empirical analysis various theories on bubbles are discussed in some length, mainly focusing the process of expectation formation. Two such processes, namely rational and...