The financial crisis which started in 2007 has caused a tremendous challenge for monetary policy. The simple concept of inflation targeting has lost its position as state of the art. There is a debate on whether the mandate of a central bank should not be widened. And, indeed, monetary policy...

This note reviews the legal issues and concerns that are likely to play an important role in the ongoing deliberations of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany concerning the legality of ECB government bond purchases such as those conducted in the context of its earlier Securities Market...

In the wake of the Global Financial Crisis that started in 2007, policymakers were forced to respond quickly and forcefully to a recession caused not by short-term factors, but rather by an over-accumulation of debt by sovereigns, banks, and households: a so-called "balance sheet recession."...

In a contribution prepared for the Athens Symposium on “Banking Union, Monetary Policy and Economic Growth”, Otmar Issing describes forward guidance by central banks as the culmination of the idea of guiding expectations by pure communication. In practice, he argues, forward guidance has...

The paper traces the developments from the formation of the European Economic and Monetary Union to this date. It discusses the fact that the primary mandate of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) is confined to safeguarding price stability and does not include general economic policy....

"Institutional Overburdening" to a large extent was a consequence of the "Great Moderation". This term indicates that it was a period in which inflation had come down from rather high levels. Growth and employment were at least satisfying and variability of output had substantially declined. It...

Non-bank (-balance sheet) based financial intermediation has become considerably more important over the last couple of decades. For the U.S., this trend has been discussed ever since the mid-1990s. As a consequence, traditional monetary transmission mechanisms, mainly operating through bank...

Very low policy rates as well as the substantial redesign of rules and supervisory institutions have changed background conditions for the Euro Area's financial intermediary sector substantially. Both policy initiatives have been targeted at improving societal welfare. And their potential side...

This Policy White Paper assesses several main elements of ECB's upcoming review of its monetary policy strategy, announced in January 2020. Four aspects of the review are discussed in detail: i) ECB's definition of price stability and the arguments for and against inflation targeting; ii) the...