On September 3-4, 2009 SUERF and Utrecht University School of Economicsorganized the Colloquium "The Quest for Stability" in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The papers included in this SUERF Study are based on contributions to the Colloquium.

Recent literature has argued that exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) into domestic inflation has been declining in many countries following a dramatic change in inflation environment during the 1990s. Available empirical results face two central challenges: (i) the evidence on declining ERPT is...

This paper deals with the phenomenon of high levels of unofficial euroisation in countries preparing for EU membership (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey). The challenges stemming from unofficial euroisation are particularly relevant...

Ghana's economy is characterised by acute exchange rate volatility alongside persistent and high consumer inflation. This places the economy among the sub-Saharan African countries with the highest inflation over the years. Therefore, we explore in-sample and out-of-sample macro-volatility...

In this paper, we study the effects of structural shocks that influence global risk - the main factor behind a "global capital flows cycle" - and how risk, in turn, is transmitted to capital flows. Our results show that not all the risk shocks driving the global financial cycle have the same...

We study what makes government bonds a safe asset. Building on a sample of monthly changes in government bond yields in 40 advanced and emerging countries, we analyse the sensitivity of yields to country specific fundamentals interacted with changes in global risk (VIX). We find that inertia...

Rising economic integration in Asia and periodic volatility in global and national financial markets raise the issue of the optimal degree and form of monetary cooperation among Asian economies. There is a large literature on the benefits and costs of monetary cooperation, however, less can be...

Die aktuellen geopolitischen Entwicklungen stellen Deutschland und Europa vor große Herausforderungen. Der zunehmende Protektionismus im Welthan- del wird besonders für Exportnationen wie Deutschland zum Problem. Der Krieg Russlands mit der Ukraine hat gezeigt, wie abrupt sich Absatzmärkte...

Whether or not inflation targeting adoption leads to increased volatility of exchange rates is controversial. The volatility increases with inflation targeting as a result of the flexible exchange rate regime. Others argue that inflation targeting delivers the best outcomes in terms of lower...

This paper analyses the effects of two alternative monetary strategies (exchange rate targeting and inflation targeting) on economic growth and employment. On the panel of 18 countries for the period from 1996 to 2013, I tested the hypothesis that countries in exchange rate targeting have a...