This working paper offers some considerations on the monetary policy framework of the European Central Bank. The trade-offs arising from adopting a point target configuration over a range target one are assessed in terms of their flexibility vs. inflation anchoring properties. This layout is...

This paper develops a two-block Structural Vector Autoregression (SVAR) to estimate the spillover of external shocks to the Maltese economy. The model focuses on five broad macroeconomic shocks hitting the euro area; an aggregate demand shock, two aggregate supply shocks which respectively proxy...

To our knowledge, this paper is the first to discuss the response of European energy commodity prices to unexpected monetary policy surprises from the European Central Bank. Using the Rigobon (2003) identification through heteroscedasticity method, we find a significant and positive response...