This paper studies the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in promoting central bank independence (CBI). While anecdotal evidence suggests that the IMF has been playing a vital role for CBI, the underlying mechanisms of this influence are not well understood. We argue that the IMF has...

This paper provides a structured overview of the burgeoning literature on the economics of CBDC. We document the economic forces that shape the rise of digital money and review motives for the issuance of CBDC. We then study the implications for the financial system and discuss of a number of...

The paper analyses the global spillovers of the Federal Reserve's unconventional monetary policy measures. First, we find that Fed measures in the early phase of the crisis (QE1) were highly effective in lowering sovereign yields and raising equity markets, especially in the US relative to other...

This paper examines the welfare implications of a country joining a currency union as opposed to operating in a flexible exchange rate regime. At the country level, the suboptimal response to domestic and foreign shocks and the inability of setting inflation at the desired level may be offset by...

In this paper, I evaluate the performance deterioration that occurs when the central bank employs an optimal targeting rule that is based on incorrect parameter values. I focus on two parameters — the degree of inflation inertia and the degree of price stickiness. I explicitly account for the...

The paper assesses the communication strategies of the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the European Central Bank and their effectiveness. We find that the effectiveness of communication is not independent from the decisionmaking process in the committee. The paper shows that the Federal...

Financial frictions affect the way in which different components of GDP respond to a monetary policy shock. We embed the financial accelerator of Bernanke, Gertler and Gilchrist (1999) into a medium-scale Dynamic General Equilibrium model and evaluate the relative importance of financial...

The paper evaluates the ability of market participants to anticipate monetary policy decisions in the euro area and in 13 other countries. First, by looking at the magnitude and the volatility of the changes in the money market rates we show that the days of policy meetings are special days for...