The study discusses the relationship between accountability and transparency in central banking and the role and scope of parliamentary scrutiny. Special attention is given to the consequences of the current crisis for this area. For the authors, the current crisis shows that price stability...

We test the hypothesis that the government bond markets in the Eurozone are more fragile and more susceptible to self-fulfilling liquidity crises than in stand-alone countries. We find evidence that a significant part of the surge in the spreads of the peripheral Eurozone countries during...

While acknowledging that the massive amounts of liquidity injected into the eurozone banking system by the ECB were absolutely necessary to save Europe’s banking system, Paul De Grauwe now criticizes these lender-of-last-resort operations as ill-designed, making it likely that the ECB will...

The agent-based (behavioural) model is extended to include a financial friction on the supply side. Firms finance capital purchases using external financing, but need to pay for it in advance. In addition, firm financing constraint and net worth are determined by stock market prices, which can...

In this paper we model how the existence of different beliefs about the underlying fundamental value of a currency affects the dynamics of the exchange rate. We find that a divergence of beliefs creates the potential for waves of optimism and pessimism that alternate in an unpredictable way....