This paper offers a comprehensive comparison of the structure of banking and financial markets in the euro area. Based on this, several hypotheses about the role of banks in monetary policy transmission are developed. Many of the predictions that have been proposed for the U.S. are deemed...

How do financial markets acquire information about upcoming monetary policy decisions, beyond their reaction to central bank signals? This paper hypothesises that sharing information among investors can improve expectations, especially in the presence of disagreement or uncertainty about the...