The article addresses recent trends in the financing costs of various public and private sectors in the euro area and Belgium. It pays particular attention to the monetary policy transmission process via the interest rate channel during the crisis and notably examines the extent to which the...

Over the past three years, it has gradually become clear that consumer gas and electricity prices in Belgium are much more volatile than elsewhere in the euro area or in the three main neighbouring countries. The article first of all examines whether recent methodological changes to the...

The liberalisation of the gas and electricity markets entailed the establishment of new pricing mechanisms, including those concerning consumers in the residential sector. The purpose of the article is to analyse how Belgian gas suppliers have adopted those mechanisms. After a brief description...

The article looks at the energy markets from a macroeconomic perspective. It first describes the main trends in the production and consumption of energy. Belgium is characterised by a high degree of energy dependency, since it no longer has any fossil fuel resources and renewable energy is not...

After two decades of successfully restoring price stability in much of the world economy, central banks begin the next millennium facing a new set of challenges. One key task is how to conduct monetary policy in an era of price stability. Clearly, policymakers would like inflation to remain...

Despite the low inflation of recent years, some observers have wondered whether rapid gains in U.S. asset prices foreshadow rising inflationary pressures. Would U.S. monetary policy be improved if Federal Reserve policymakers reacted systematically to changes in the prices of widely held assets...

Many analysts have advocated using commodity prices as a guide for monetary policy. A necessary condition is that changes in commodity prices are good predictors of future aggregate price changes. This paper examines that proposition. It shows that while commodity prices can help produce more...

The Neal Resolution, now in Congress, would make price stability the dominant goal of monetary policy. The first of these two articles holds that policymakers’ discretion over the price level increases political conflict. Further, it argues that removing this discretion would restore the...

The Neal Resolution, now in Congress, would make price stability the dominant goal of monetary policy. The first of these two articles holds that policymakers’ discretion over the price level increases political conflict. Further, it argues that removing this discretion would restore the...