This paper provides a simple weekly model of the regular supply of liquidity in the euro area, with a view to understanding the functioning of the euro area money market. The main result of the analysis is that liquidity has normally been provided by the ECB in a neutral and smooth manner, but...

Announcing a quantitative objective for price developments has become a common practice in modern monetary policy making. While the specific features of such announced objectives vary across countries, a common rationale for this is to help anchoring inflation expectations. We use survey data on...

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...

We examine the euro area monetary policy transmission process using post-1999 data, with two main questions in mind: has it changed after u0096 and because of u0096 EMU and, if so, is it becoming homogeneous across countries. Given the data limitations, we concentrate on three blocks of...

After the switch to a floating exchange rate in 1973, the Swiss National Bank at first adopted annual monetary targets and in the 1990s shifted to a medium-term targeting strategy. In this paper I review the SNBu0092s internal policy analysis, an aspect of Swiss monetary targeting that has...

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...

Pricing-to-market (PTM) behaviour implies that exporters adjust their prices to the prevailing prices in their export markets. For the importing country, PTM effects can be interpreted as a measure of the stability of domestic prices against foreign price and exchange rate developments. PTM...

This paper uses data on German government bond futures options to examine the behaviour of market expectations around monetary policy actions of the European Central Bank (ECB). In particular, this paper focuses on the asymmetries in bond market expectations, as measured by the skewness of...

The paper summarises the outcomes of a research project on u0093The Eastward Enlargement of the Eurozoneu0094 that has been, since 2001, conducted by leading research institutions from Estonia, Finland, Italy, Poland, Portugal and Slovenia, coordinated by the Freie Universität Berlin's Jean...