Were real effective exchange rates (REER) of Euro area member countries drastically misaligned at the outbreak of the global financial crisis? The answer is difficult to determine because economic theory gives no simple guideline for determining the equilibrium values of real exchange rates, and...

While there has been some debate over the usefulness of monetary aggregates, there has been surprisingly little discussion of the actual implications for liquidity. In this paper, we provide an approximation of the liquidity development in six Euro area countries from 2003 to 2012. We show that...

Bootstrap; Europäische Währungsunion; Frühwarnsystem; Makroökonomische Ungleichgewichte; Makroökonomische Überwachung; Penalized Splines; Risikoprämien auf Staatsschulden; Staatsschuldenkrise; Semiparametrische Regression; Signalansatz

Can a negative shock to sovereign ratings invoke a vicious cycle of increasing government bond yields and further downgrades, ultimately pushing a country toward default? The narratives of public and political discussions, as well as of some widely cited papers, suggest this possibility. In this...

Closer integration between Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the EU has opened up channels facilitating the propagation of economic shocks from the core to the eastern periphery. This paper examines the effects of such shocks to economic activity and monetary conditions originating in the...