This paper estimates the factors underlying the volatility of the euro overnight interest rate and its transmission along the euro area money market yield curve. A new multivariate unobserved components model is proposed allowing for both long-memory and stationary cyclical dynamics. Using...

This paper investigates the performance of optimised interest rate rules when there is uncertainty about a key determinant of the monetary transmission mechanism, namely the degree of persistence characterising the inflation process. The paper focuses on the euro area and utilises two variants of...

On several occasions during the period 2001-2003, the European Central Bank (ECB) decided to deviate from its "neutral" benchmark allotment rule, with the effect of not alleviating a temporary liquidity shortage in the banking system. This is remarkable because it implied the possibility of...

This paper examines the feasibility of implementing Linear Quadratic Gaussian (LQG) Control in structural cointegrated VAR models and sheds some light on the two major problems generated by such implementation. The first aspect to be taken into account is the effect of the presence of unit roots...

This paper proposes a new paradigm for the analysis of monetary policy. From an econometric point of view this new approach is just as easy to implement as reduced form analysis, but is robust to the Lucas critique. It requires no explicit prior theory and yet it encompasses all standard DSGE...

Structural VARs have been extensively used in empirical macroeconomics during the last two decades, particularly in analyses of monetary policy. Existing Bayesian procedures for structural VARs are at best confined to a severly limited handling of cointegration restrictions. This paper extends...

We use a Vector Auto Regression (VAR) analysis to explore the (spill-over) effects of fiscal policy shocks in Europe. To enhance comparability with the existing literature, we first analyse the effects of these shocks at the national level. Here, we employ identification based on Choleski...

This paper presents the results of a quantitative study of the implications of the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates which was undertaken in the context of the review of the ECBu0092s monetary policy strategy in Spring 2003. Focusing on the euro area, the paper provides an assessment of...

Standard economic models hold that exchange rates are influenced by fundamental variables such as relative money supplies, outputs, inflation rates and interest rates. Nonetheless, it has been well documented that such variables little help predict changes in floating exchange rates u0097 that...

In this paper we estimate simple Taylor rules paying particular attention to interest rate smoothing. Following English, Nelson, and Sack (2002), we employ a model in first differences to gain some insights into the presence and signifcance of the degree of partial adjustment as opposed to a...