Since the financial crisis in 2007–08, central bank balance sheets in advanced economies have expanded significantly. This expansion has not led to inflation risks (at least not to date), but it has raised concerns about financial stability, which have been especially vocal in the euro area....

This paper shows that the EMU has not affected historical characteristics of member countries' business cycles and their cross-correlations. Member countries which had similar levels of GDP per-capita in the seventies have also experienced similar business cycles since then and no significant...

This paper evaluates models that exploit timely monthly releases to compute early estimates of current quarter GDP (now-casting) in the euro area. We compare traditional methods used at institutions with a new method proposed by Giannone, Reichlin, and Small (2005). The method consists in...