Challenging the conventional wisdom that structural problems are to blame for the euro area's protracted domestic demand stagnation, this paper sets out to shed some fresh light on the role of the ECB in the ongoing EMU crisis. Contrary to the widely held interpretation of the ECB as an...

This paper provides an overview of central banking arrangements in those European countries that have adopted the euro. Issues addressed include the structure of the "Eurosystem" and its central banking functions, the kind of independence granted to the system and the role of monetary policy...

This paper estimates forward-looking and forecast-based Taylor rules for France, Germany, Italy, as well as the euro area, using both final revised data and real-time data. We are particularly interested in the impact of adding asset prices to the standard Taylor rule specification. Since...

The belief that the ECB follows the US Federal Reserve in setting its policy is so entrenched with market participants and commentators that the search for empirical support would seem to be a trivial task. However, this is not the case. We find that the ECB is indeed often influenced by the...