The European Central Bank's asset purchase programs, while intended to stabilize the economy, may have unintended side effects on financial stability. This paper aims at gauging the effects on financial markets, the banking sector, and lending to non-financial firms. Using a structural vector...

Central bank announcements move financial markets. The response of inflation and growth expectations, on the other hand, is often small or even counterintuitive. Based on tick-by-tick futures prices on bonds and stock prices, I confirm these seemingly puzzling results for the euro area and...

During the European financial crisis, the European Central Bank implemented a series of unconventional monetary policy measures. We argue that these unconventional monetary policy measures created soft budget constraints for the Eurozone countries by lowering their bond yield spreads. This...