European leaders debate the establishment of a "European Recovery Fund" (ERF). The ERF shall help the European economy to restart growth after the COVID-19 pandemic-related recession that is currently unfolding. Early national and European fiscal measures of anti-crisis policy have been focused...

In a joint initiative, the political leaders of France and Germany have proposed to set up a EUR 500 billion fund to support the recovery of the EU economy from the COVID-19 recession. The Recovery Fund (RF)shall be financed through the issuance of bonds by the European Commission. Repayments...

Over the last decade, the Eurosystem has become one of the crucial players in the market for euro area government bonds. After first substantive purchases through the Securities Market Programme (SMP) in 2010, the Eurosystem's involvement has reached a new breadth and magnitude with the...

Since March 2020, the Eurosystem has been purchasing government bonds under the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP). The PEPP was set up as a non-standard policy measure to encounter the economic and financial consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic and is an additional program to the...

The COVID-19 pandemic has put the public finances of industrial countries under severe stress. The resulting recession has not only led to shortfalls in tax revenues but also to increased public expenditures. National governments have embarked on massive rescue packages to protect citizens and...

The ECB Council has to take a decision on the future of its asset purchase programmes as the monetary crisis support that was appropriate in the early phase of the pandemic needs to be adjusted to new circumstances. The changing environment is characterized by an advanced recovery from the...

The ECB is about to discontinue its net asset purchases. In December 2021, the ECB Council had already decided to end net purchases under the Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP) by the end of March 2022. Given the very high and persistent inflation, recent remarks from ECB board members...

In this analysis, we investigate ECB communication by analyzing more than 3,800 speeches from 1999 until 2022. The study measures the attention which ECB Council members pay to various implicit and explicit monetary policy objectives. While price stability, according to the Maastricht Treaty, is...

This paper aims to raise the awareness and knowledge about state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in Germany - a sizable but often ignored part of the overall public sector which the authors of this ZEW expert brief, therefore, label the "other government" - to facilitate an informed debate about the...

In this report we update the quantitative analysis of the PEPP and PSPP conduct and analyze whether reinvestments are actually made in accordance to these claims. In prior versions of our report, we have detected patterns in the net purchases under PEPP and PSPP, which suggested systematic and...