Using a randomized controlled trial, we study whether showing German respondents a graph plotting the European Central Bank's inflation target alongside inflation in the euro area from 1999 to 2017 affects respondents' trust in the ECB. The treatment has, on average, no significant effect on the...

This paper studies ECB and Bundesbank communication on monetary policy during the first years of the European Economic and Monetary Union. We study whether statements by different (groups of) central bankers have been contradictory and whether differences have diminished over time. We find that...

Since the 1980s inflationary pressures seem to materialize overproportionately outside of the sectors of consumer goods and services. We combine the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices with indices for asset prices, such as stocks and real estate, as well as the costs of public goods to develop...

Monetary policy currently has only limited room for manoeuvre to fight inflation. Structural supply problems, war and past omissions are having an impact. Inflation is hitting those hardest who cannot pass on the price increase. There is no evidence of a wage-price spiral in Germany at present....

The German hyperinflation in 1923 was caused by monetary financing of the highly deficient German state budget by a de-pendent central bank. The social and economic consequences of the hyperinflation were disastrous. Combined with an instable politi-cal atmosphere, paving the way for the rise of...

This paper analyses the impact of asymmetric preferences with respect to inflation and output by policymakers on interest-rate reaction functions and test for their existence. A modified New Keynesian framework which makes it possible to identify the dominant type of asymmetry is developed and...

The empirical literature on central banking has found measures of central bank independence/conservatism to be negatively correlated with inflation and inflation variance across countries. But the cross-country approach has been criticised for its focus on policy outcomes instead of policies,...

This paper reports the results of a survey among private sector economists about credibility and transparency of central banks. In line with the survey of Alan Blinder among central bankers, we asked participants in Ifo s World Economic Survey to answer questions on the importance and...

Using firm-level survey data from Germany, this paper asks how do supply constraints propagate monetary policy shocks? To answer this question, we first offer a general discussion on the measurement of supply constraints. We show that capacity utilization, a widely accepted measure of...