We attempt to assess the effect of monetary policy in a panel model for 16 OECD countries. To answer the question whether central banks actively create political business cycles we focus on the short-term interest rate as a proxy for the use of monetary instruments. Our results indicate that...

This paper analyses the role of bank lending in the monetary transmission process in Germany. We follow a sectoral approach by distinguishing corporate lending and household lending. We find that banks respond to a monetary contraction by adjusting their securities holdings, rather than reducing...

Abstract The relevance of public support for monetary policy has largely been overlooked in the empirical central bank literature. We have constructed a new indicator for the support of the German Bundesbank and present descriptive and empirical evidence. We nd that major German interest groups...