We examine a propagation mechanism that arises from households' long-term borrowing and show empirically that it has sizable real effects. The mechanism recognises that when there is long-term debt, an impulse to new borrowing generates a predictable hump-shaped path of future debt service. We...

On February 12, 2010, SUERF, the Oesterreichische Nationalbank and the Bankwissenschaftliche Gesellschaft continued their established tradition of jointly organised conferences. As evidenced also by the 115 conference participants, this year's subject of "Contagion and Spillovers – New...

We find that deep contractions have highly persistent scarring effects, depressing the level of GDP at least a decade hence. Drawing on a panel of 24 advanced and emerging economies from 1970 to the present, we show that these effects are nonlinear and asymmetric: there is no such persistence...

I study the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on business confidence in 11 Euro area countries and its consequent impact on economic activity. To obtain causal effects, I instrument business confidence with domestic household confidence as well as average household confidence in neighboring...

We document a remarkable increase in economic belief polarization - disagreement - regarding the future state of the economy across Europe during the Covid-19 pandemic. We find evidence suggesting that belief polarization may have impeded the implementation of pandemic response measures such as...

What is the likelihood that the U.S. will experience a devastating catastrophic event over the next few decades – something that would substantially reduce the capital stock, GDP and wealth? What does the possibility of such an event imply for the behavior of economic variables such as...

Under ordinary circumstances, the fiscal implications of central bank policies tend to be seen as relatively minor and escape close scrutiny. The global financial crisis of 2008, however, demanded an extraordinary response by central banks which brought to light the immense power of central bank...